by Schow, Ryan
“Did you know that in 1948 the White House was declared uninhabitable?”
“You seem to know a few things about this place for a regular guy,” the stranger replied.
“I guess I do.”
“You a historian or something?”
“Or something,” he said. “Harry and Bess Truman had to move out back in ’48. It took them four years to rebuild the entire structure from the inside out. Only the outside walls remained. Whomever declared it uninhabitable back then, I wonder what they’d think of it now.”
“It’s sad,” the man said.
It was like Ben could see three different versions of the White House: Truman’s version, the pre-EMP version and this version right now. The sight gave him pause, a long moment of silence and contemplation.
The stranger finally turned and said, “Where are you from, friend?”
“Daisy and I came down from Pennsylvania. Say hi, Daisy.” Daisy turned and gave a friendly bark. “She was supposed to be a fighter, but she’s too sweet for that.”
“You wanted a fighting dog?”
“No. Her owner did. That was his first and last mistake with her.”
“What happened.”
He turned, looked at the man, then said, “He met his maker.”
The man swallowed hard, then turned his eyes on Daisy.
“Yeah, she looks nice,” he said.
The guy was a few feet from Ben, hands in the pockets of his blue jeans, a long sleeved button-up, untucked. He looked harmless. And as far as Ben could tell, the man wasn’t armed. But he knew better than to dismiss anyone in this new world. For some guys, this hands-in-the-pockets, congenial look was a ruse, the smile before the kill.
Together they were looking at the White House, almost like two men staring at a piece of fine art someone came and spit on. In his mind, however, Ben was thinking of all the possible ways this man could kill him. Rule number one was measure the target and have a plan to neutralize them. Rule number two was to consider defense. It was to measure your target and assess his or her advantage over you. The lawlessness of this land meant this could be the last moments of either of their lives. Or it could just be nothing. The breeze stirred again, making Daisy blink a little faster.
Without taking his eyes off the White House, still curious about the man’s intentions, Ben said, “Even though she looks well mannered, Daisy will chew your nuts off if I tell her, so be nice.”
The guy put his hands up and said, “I don’t mean nothing by nothing. In fact, I was voted most agreeable in high school.”
Ben laughed, then looked at the man and said, “That true?”
With a smirk, he said, “No. I wasn’t voted anything. I’m kind of a middle-of-the-roader, you know? Normal kid, normal grades. Never got in a fight. Never arrested. I married my high school sweetheart in my freshman year of college.”
“Really?”
“She was never really pretty the way guys want their girls to be, but she had a great ass and an infectious laugh to make up for it.”
“She make it?”
“No.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, solemn. “We’re all sorry, aren’t we?”
“We are.”
“You married?”
“Wife, two kids. Both went down in a chopper.”
“The EMP?”
“Drone strike I’m told.”
The guy was quiet for a spell, then he said, “Were you a middle-of-the-roader, too?”
“No,” he said, then he turned and extended a hand, which the man shook and said, “It was nice to meet you.”
“Where you going?”
“I came all this way to see it. I’m guess I’m going to head in and have a look.”
“It’s dangerous in there,” he warned. “Might be squatters.”
Walking over the fallen wrought iron fence, he said, “Daisy’s hungry, so I should be alright if I encounter any trouble.”
“What’d you say your name was?”
“Ben,” he said. “What about you?”
“Earl.”
“It’s been a pleasure, Earl.”
“Same here, Ben.”
Ben and Daisy tromped through the overgrown lawn, past untrimmed bushes and up to the front doors where the entrance was dusted with a fine layer of dirt and riddled with bullet holes. One of the columns looked like someone tried to chop it down with an axe. Ben understood the anger. The President’s job was to secure the borders and run the military. It was his job to keep America safe and he’d failed in that regard. Or maybe this was just some stupid kids thinking they could finally take down the power structure.
It was already down. The man had officially been defeated.
He walked in through the front entrance, an entrance that was now smashed wide open because something had driven right through it. Maybe it was a car. Or a truck. He walked inside to a wash of sloughed-off rubble and tons of destruction.
He was hit with a short snap of vertigo at the sight. This was once The First House. Now it was just a dilapidated house. Something vandalized to prove the country was over. That there was no power left, no structure, no society.
That they were on our own.
Daylight cut in through broken windows and crumbling walls. The building suffered substantial damage, but it was unclear whether it was from drones or from people. If he had to guess, he’d say it was people.
Would folks have come here looking for help? Would they look for their leaders as proof their world was still functional? Would others have come here to lynch him?
It was possible.
On the other side of the first floor entrance, Ben saw the rusted, baby blue pickup truck that had smashed through the front door, the reception desk and into the Blue room.
It really was the Blue Room now. Blue walls, a few surviving blue drapes, a non-functional blue truck. On closer inspection, the old Dodge’s front door hung open on rusted hinges. There were cobwebs strung throughout the inside of the truck, reaching all the way to the hinges which held a furry bundle of spider’s eggs. He walked around to the hood. It was visibly damaged, propped open with its age and destruction on display. There were more cobwebs. Lots of rust. It was a wonder this thing even ran. Beneath the engine, there was a sticky puddle, long since dried and turned black.
A few passing clouds blotted out the light from the sun, throwing shadows over the space, leaving it feeling glum, like something you’d see in a video game about the apocalypse, or a Resident Evil movie. The feeling was so unfamiliar and long, he had a hard time shaking it. He walked away from the scene, the disconnect too difficult to comprehend.
A small headache was forming just above his left eye.
“C’mon girl,” he said to Daisy, who’d put her front paws on the seat and was sniffing the fabric.
Dutifully, she followed him.
The family dining room next to the north portico was caved in, sections of the outer wall having fallen away, leaving it exposed to the elements. There was a damp smell, moldy, but not like a household mold, something dirtier, more earthy. There were weeds growing along the corners of the wall, and plenty of rot near the more damaged sections.
All these rooms—the Blue Room, the Green Room, the Red Room and the dining room—were not only suffering structural impairment, they’d been vandalized and looted, too. The chandeliers were gone. Like someone cut them away at the ceiling and carted them off along with the furniture. Most of the drapery and the hardware was gone, but some fabric remained in place, torn. He had to watch where he stepped, because the once polished floors were now marred and littered with filth. Leaves, dirt and in some places, human feces speckled here and there. In two of the rooms, someone tried to pull up the corner of the carpet, but hadn’t gotten very far before giving up.
Walking through the White House showed him a great many horrors, the worst of which was that the once pristine white walls of places like the East Room were no
w tagged with the kind of graffiti his wife and kids would be horrified to see. The montage of penises spray painted across the walls was enough to both sicken and enrage a true patriot, and in the shadows of the back corner of the one room were two dead people. The bodies were huddled together and badly decomposed.
Daisy looked on, started to wander their way. “No,” he said. She stopped, looked at him and gave a low whine.
He gave her a look and she came back to his side.
Ben and Daisy took the long hallway leading to the west wing, which was also in bad shape, but passable amidst structural rubble, some displaced and obviously damaged furniture, and the kind of scattered garbage you see from squatters.
The Oval Office was worse.
Ben stood outside his former office trying to still his hammering heart. The traitorous Secret Service agent that had been killed at the start of this coup was where they’d left him. The body in his office was spoiled, all the life and moisture dried out of him. His skin was like beef jerky, his body nothing but a human compost pile in the making.
Daisy looked up at him; Ben shook his head no and Daisy obeyed.
The office windows were broken outward, giving him an unobstructed view of the rose garden and the south lawn, both of which were suffering greatly with neglect. The sun broke through the midday clouds, illuminated the surreal state of the White House landscape.
He brushed dirt off the chair, blew off the last layer of dust, then sat down, Daisy laying beside him, panting.
“This is where everything first went wrong,” he said. Daisy looked at him, tongue out, blinking. “You’re such a good dog, you know that?”
Daisy gave a soft bark, then let Ben lean down and scratch her side. The word failure was scratched into the desk with what looked like a knife. Beneath that was the word traitor. The office was spray painted with a spectacular array of what he was starting to think of as “genital art.”
“How did it ever come to this?” he said aloud.
Daisy looked up at him.
He’d taken to talking to the dog, not because he thought she’d understand, but because it seemed to make her feel loved, appreciated and closer to him. By then, the two of them had become inseparable.
He stood and Daisy stood with him. Together they wandered around the White House a little more, the memories competing with the current state of things, the reality stamping those memories into a state of flux. The initial shock of seeing his former home was petering out, but there was one last thing to do: he had to say good-bye. He needed closure, even though the thought of what he was about to do frightened him.
“I have to,” he said to Daisy. With her head held low, she seemed to know what was coming. What this meant to him.
Finally they trudged upstairs to the bedrooms, to the one he and his wife shared before all this happened. Their bed was gone, the room in shambles. The wall their headboard used to stand against was now tagged with the name Dante “Dirty” Sanchez. At least Dirty was a good artist. At least his letters were colorful. This did nothing for his mood, though.
Spiraling downward, feeling that one last thread of hope disintegrating, he walked like a zombie to their closet, sagged with defeat when he found it empty. Not a single shirt or even a pair of socks. Everything that was once his or his wife’s was gone.
A hollow, pained sound escaped him. It was the sound of crushing disappointment. It was the echo of true failure. His head was nothing but memories of his wife and kids. His heart was nothing but a steep and unrequited longing for them. An unanswered love that followed him from the last world into this one. To say he missed them was obvious, but to know the emptiness in his heart—to know the fullness that was once there—was to know how badly Ben had been broken.
This trip was never for nostalgic purposes. It was simpler than that. Simpler yet more complicated.
He needed something of his wife’s to hold, to press against him. Something to remind him of her, to keep close to his heart while he decided if he wanted to survive in this world.
A blouse, a scarf, a coat. Something to connect him to her.
This is what kept him going. This is why he was there. But no. All her clothes were gone. Her clothes were gone, and his memories were fading entirely too fast.
Sitting down on the floor in resignation, Daisy sitting beside him while at the same time nuzzling up to him, the big break finally came. The final fissure. The tears welled hard and fast behind his eyes, a thousand pinpricks to remind him life was truly over, that his heart was no longer working for him but against him as this giant, always-breaking mass.
He would never have closure. There would be no good-byes. Not now.
Not ever.
So he sat there sobbing like a child, shaking, Daisy pressing her body against him but looking away. He sat there struggling to remember her, the lines of her face, the light in her eyes. He managed to grasp a glimmer of her, but this was like trying to hold a breeze. She was gone, fading and clarifying, then fading and blurring.
The weight of his remorse was a lead blanket, dragging his soul into the mire, sucking him dry of hope, or even the motivation to carry on. What was life if not to be with the people you love? And when they’re gone, when you’re all alone without purpose, what the hell was even left? The impossible, crappy burden of it all, that’s what.
At this point, Daisy knew his sadness, knew he needed to have it alone, but she refused to peel herself from his side. He could have his pain, but he would not be having it alone so long as she was with him. He’d rescued her when she needed it, now she was trying to do the same for him. At least, that’s what he imagined she was thinking.
But who could really read a dog’s mind?
Certainly not him.
The girls would have loved her. His wife would have loved Daisy, too. Wiping his eyes, looking at this lovely beast, he said, “You would’ve liked my family.”
Given permission to interact with him again, Daisy leaned over and gave his forearm a little lick.
“They would have spoiled you.”
Now she stood and licked his cheek three times before settling back down and facing him. He should have been happy to have a friend like Daisy, and he was, but it only reminded him of what he’d lost, how much pain he was carrying.
Daisy gave a little whine.
She knew she could never fill all the holes inside him.
He tried to pull himself out of that gloomy place, but he realized he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t see a way out of this dark, morose existence.
The pain in his chest returned. It took hold of everything ruined and vulnerable in him and spun up the volume. Daisy scooted next to him, but she was not enough. He couldn’t stand this world anymore. He couldn’t take it. Don’t think about it, he told himself.
Just do it.
He took his gun out, chambered a round, put it to his head. With a lost and destroyed heart and a lifetime of crushing guilt, he closed his eyes to his dog and said, “I’m coming home, baby.”
Chapter One Hundred Forty-One
When the explosions started and the first two buildings partially collapsed, we figured the same morons who were launching dead bodies at us were now playing with dynamite.
The buildings that buckled were four story residences on Grove and Ashbury. The way parts of the structures collapsed, the rubble from both places spilled into Ashbury, cutting us off from that street completely.
The security side of our group held an emergency meeting.
“It’s time to take the gloves off,” Rider says, his eyeballs actually trembling. “I can stomach a bunch of dumb kids playing out their little flying zombie fantasies, but this is ridiculous.”
“Maybe it’s a one time thing,” Indigo tries to reason.
“It’s not,” Rex replies. “If it was a one time thing, they’d have gotten the message when we torched their catapult, which was no small thing. I mean, that contraption probably took twenty guys a full month to build.”
“Yeah,” Macy says, agreeing with him. “They could have stopped after the first round of dead bodies. But then they set them on fire and now they’re blowing up buildings? It seems like they’re escalating, upping the shock value of their attacks.”
“Seeing flaming dead people was shocking enough,” I hear myself mumble.
“It’s almost like they want a war,” Macy says.
Rider stands, paces the room for a second, looks out the window, then turns and says, “We survived the machines. We survived the culling. A few of us have survived mass murder, grievous personal violations and the deaths of love ones. If we don’t take these clowns serious, it’s like laying down in the street and telling them to have their way with us.”
“No one’s saying that,” Sarah says, reaching for his hand. Rider doesn’t see her doing this, so when she misses his hand, he doesn’t realize that to others this looks like a rebuff.
“We’re saying this if we don’t do something,” Rider replies. The way he looks at Sarah, you can see he’s trying not to discount her opinion. The way he looks at her, it’s easy to see he’s madly in love with her and wanting to protect her.
He’s wanting to protect us all.
Sarah looks at him and there is something in her eyes. Fear, admiration, attraction, love. It’s not just one thing. It’s all of those things passing through her eyes in waves, each separate, each fleeting, all making up the complete picture.
“There are no more rules, people,” he says, taking her hand and calming down. “This is yet another inexcusable act of war. It’s between us and an enemy who, for no known reason, has decided to target us. So we need to do what we do best.”
“Which is what?” Stanton asks.
“Hit ‘em so damned hard their grandkids feel it in their little ballsacks.” This causes a mixed reaction. Someone snickers. It’s Macy I think.
My hand goes up, almost on its own.
“I want in,” I tell Rider.
Stanton’s hand is up beside mine fractions of a second later.