The Post

by Kevin A. Muñoz

  A reception desk has been set up in the lobby, and the woman seated there resembles a principal’s office secretary about as much as a dog resembles a cat. She is stocky and muscular, and her dark hair is cropped close to her head. With the flick of a hand she gestures for me to enter, her mouth pursed in a display of impatience.

  “Local or visiting?” she asks, opening a ring binder in front of her.

  “Local,” I reply, not sure how safely I could answer otherwise.

  “Are you here for supplies or labor?” She looks me over, peering over her ring binder as she flips through laminated pages. “I’m guessing supplies.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, suddenly reminded of my time at the Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut. I feel exposed and unprepared, like a green-faced first year cadet. My oversized shirt and the ill-fitting boots are not helping.

  “When did you get here?” she asks, her face the avatar of skepticism. “How long were you on the road?”

  “A while,” I answer. “I haven’t been here long.” I take a long shot and go for ignorance. “One of the guards told me to come here. He said I could pick up a few things. I’m not really sure—”

  “Oh, honey,” she interrupts, and her demeanor changes entirely. “You’ve come to the right place.” She stands, setting down her binder, then comes around to the front of her desk to put a hand lightly on my arm. Her fingers press into my bicep, precisely where a tattoo would be if I were one of the town’s slaves. No doubt checking for my reaction. A new tattoo would hurt, and an old one would make me react self-consciously, defensively. “Orientation’s always a bit slow. You’re probably scheduled for tomorrow, right?” She nods before I get a chance to reply. “Well, I’ll get you started at least.”

  She hustles me into a sturdy chair next to her desk, then takes up her original position again. “They’ll find you an apartment and assign you some help to get settled. So don’t you worry about that. But it sure looks like you need clothes. I’m sure we can find something in your size. We get enough people with your build through here, we’ve probably got a surplus.”

  “So the clothes and supplies—” I start.

  “Confiscated,” she says without a hint of dissonance or self-reflection. “Workers don’t need anything except simple uniforms, after all. And the ones we trade on, they get kitted out by the buyers. You know how it is. We can’t know ahead of time what they’ll want them for.”

  Perhaps my true feelings are starting to leak past my controlled expression. The receptionist leans in sympathetically. “You’ll get used to it, hon. It’s us or them, after all, and the world needs rebuilding. Just be glad you didn’t catch someone’s eye out there. This is a sanctuary. If you’ve got what it takes to get here on your own, you’re safe as houses. If not, you weren’t really fit for it, anyway. Right?”

  “Of course,” I say.

  “You’re not too chatty,” she says with a satisfied nod. “I like that.”

  “It isn’t what I expected. That’s all. I was hoping to meet Ravana. I’ve heard good things.”

  “Oh, hon, no one meets Ravana.” She chuckles, looking through her binder, glancing at me every few seconds. “Just his staff, you know. People like you and me, we’re too far down the line. But everything you hear is true. Trust me. We’ve got food, warm beds, safe streets. The guardians keep an eye on everything and don’t impose too much. You can build a family here.” She pops a finger at a page in her binder. “Here we go. Just as I thought. We’ve got clothes to spare. Come along, hon. We’ll get you situated in no time.”

  I spend the next hour listening to my new friend explain the basic workings of Clarke County, while getting fitted for three changes of clothes and two pairs of boots. I do my best to ignore the fact that these clothes belonged to someone else, not too long ago, and that she may be under the whip a block away, or worse.

  According to Eileen, the government of Clarke County works out of the police and militia building. They are in bed with the trafficking network but are not themselves part of it. It’s only in the last year that the traffickers have taken a more central role in the town. The citizens reap the bulk of the fruits, and in return give Ravana’s people a secure place to operate. Eileen grows wistful for a time, talking about the more innocent early years after the collapse, but she doesn’t let the nostalgia compromise her new condition. The facts of the world are what they are, and she is glad to be on the winning side.

  Once I have my new clothes and Eileen’s trusting ear, I risk asking more important questions. I learn that this “distribution center” is where abducted men and women, some as young as twelve, are traded to outsiders in exchange for whatever Clarke County can’t produce itself. It is also the place where all confiscated possessions go before being redistributed throughout the town, to the advantage of anyone lucky enough not to be a captive here.

  When I press with additional questions, Eileen backs away from the conversation. “I know my small part,” she says. “If you’re looking to join up, you should go talk to the drivers. You’ll start out doing retrieval runs with the boys. If they trust you enough, and you want to stay planted in town, you might be able to get a job here at the center, wrangling the merchandise. You look like you can take care of yourself, too. You could always go in with the militia. That’s a better fit for some people. The ones who don’t like getting their hands dirty.”

  “I’d think they’d get their hands dirty a lot.”

  Eileen smiles. “They’re not an army, hon. They’re here to protect us. So far, just their being around is enough.”

  “And what about you?” I ask as we walk back around to the front of the school. “You get your hands dirty.”

  Eileen nods as if this were a poignant observation. “You know what I was, before? High school guidance counselor up in the Bronx. Old New York, you know. People there lived worse than half the merchandise that comes through here ever will. See, most of the merchandise goes out. They go to towns that need certain skills. They go to little communities that just need bodies to keep from winking out of existence. They go where they’re needed or where they’re wanted. Sometimes here, sometimes out there. That’s not something everyone gets to do.”

  I agree amiably and thank her for her help and advice. I leave with a bundle on my back and a deep and abiding urge to scrub my skin raw. Eileen has been forced to justify her life for so long that it’s become a natural part of her, and maybe I shouldn’t judge her for surviving.

  But I can, and I do. The town’s acquiescence to the soiling of its collective conscience is surely due to the dark rewards for compliance.

  My new clothes and cleanliness, and reasonable confidence that I won’t be singled out as a stranger, allow me to spend the next few hours investigating every block of the town. By the time dusk comes, I’ve scoured most of Athens. I make note of the locations of every significant site on a rudimentary map that Eileen supplied. It appears, however, that most of the university’s buildings are unused or at best underutilized. The population of Clarke County is spread out, occupying the space within the perimeter far less efficiently than the Little Five.

  I want to be rid of this place, but once the sun sets I am back at the College of Education building, observing from across the street. The guard house is still occupied: the man at the post comes out once to piss in a bush nearby, his HK293 slung over his shoulder. More soldiers come out of the building, locking it up as they depart, and one of them I recognize as an overseer from the fields. A brief, loud argument follows about the guard’s habit of leaving his post, then the overseer leaves, no doubt going back to a comfortable home and a warm bed.

  The other entrances have been locked and boarded, but are unguarded, and trees give enough cover around the perimeter of the building. The overseers must be confident that the captives inside can’t use the side doors, but they wouldn’t be terribly concerned about outsiders trying to get in.

  Unfortunately,
to get in by a side entrance, I’d need Barkov with me—or Luther, who was much better at picking locks than I. So I return to my hiding place across the street and wait for my opportunity. I prepare my bundle of clothes by taking out all of the soft items and leaving only my new spare boots.

  My chance comes just over an hour later, well after dark. The guard at the gate leaves his post again, moving toward the bushes and unbuckling his belt. I dash across the street, then wait at the edge of the relocated toll booth, just out of sight of the man as he makes his return trip. He keeps his weapon slung over his shoulder as he buckles his belt again and adjusts himself the way men who think they’re not being watched tend to do.

  Swinging hard, I connect my boots with the side of the guard’s head, and he fumbles off-balance into the toll booth, falling over his chair and crumpling into the back wall. As he struggles to rise to his feet and get his assault rifle out from under him, I step into the cramped space and shut the lower half of the door behind me.

  I think of Barkov’s work at the police station. He allows his anger to push him to places that I’ve never wanted to go—until now. I tell myself I’m only slipping into his skin, not finding a new layer of my own, and kick the guard squarely in the face. The strike breaks his nose and dislodges a few of his teeth. He cries out, but with a few more stomps of my boot the noise stops. His arms flail weakly as I relieve him of his weapon. With some mild surprise, I realize that it’s not an HK293 at all: it’s a proper G36, fully automatic. It lacks a reflex sight, which means it was probably originally intended for export to Spain. Pre-collapse, this would have been a highly illegal weapon to own. I wonder how it got here. Maybe I was right about the Port of Savannah.

  I take the knife from the guard’s belt and cut the belt loop that holds a sizable ring of keys. I step back out of the toll booth, shut both halves of the door, and lock them from the outside. If I leave him here, he will find his way out eventually or make enough noise to be discovered, but I don’t intend to give him the chance.

  What I’m doing is a risk. Even if I’m not caught, I’ve no doubt the police and militia will heighten their attention as a result of the incident, making it more difficult for me to search for Phoebe later, if she’s not inside. My best chance for the future is to keep everyone thinking the missing guard deserted rather than got his head kicked in by an outsider. It won’t last forever, but it might last long enough.

  Watching for people on the road and seeing no one, I move quickly to the front doors and work the lock until I find the right key. Every second is an eternity while my back is exposed to the street, but I don’t need as much time as I feared. I’m inside within twenty seconds.

  I’m tempted to start searching every room immediately, but I need to dispose of the guard first. The ground floor is a nest of classrooms and offices, plus a utility closet that would have served perfectly had anyone thought to provide the key. I have to settle for one of the front offices: a room set behind another room, both of which can be locked. I hurry back out, retrieve the guard, and haul him into the building as quickly as I can.

  Once he is secured behind two locked doors—and bound to a heavy metal desk in the inner office—I lock the entrance again and take a breath. Now to search.

  I find nothing on the ground floor. All of the rooms are empty, most of them covered in layers of dust. The second floor is a different matter. Immediately upon coming through the stairwell door, I catch the stench of sweat and shit in the hall. With fewer outward facing windows, the corridors are dark, but I find a small flashlight secured to the wall opposite the stairwell.

  As I expected, the rooms are locked. The guard’s ring of keys opens the first door I check, but it’s another empty office. The next door opens into a classroom, but the keys don’t open the padlocked flush bolt that has been attached to it.

  There is a small security glass window in the door, and peering in, I can barely make out a few forms on the floor. I chance a flash of my light and see a collection of occupied mats and blankets on the ground, much like what we saw in Conyers.

  Some of the captives stir and look toward me. I’m sure they can’t see much, since I’m the one with the light; they probably assume I’m one of the overseers. So I sweep the light across as much of the room as I can see through the window, searching in vain for a face I recognize.

  The smell that was overpowering when I came onto the floor fades with familiarity. I can breathe more easily, which lets me pick up my pace. I ignore the offices after the second one is also empty and focus on the classrooms. Each one contains between four and eight pitiful people whom I can’t reach. None of them is Phoebe.

  In frustration I yank hard on the last bolt I come to. None of the keys fit in the padlock. One of the men in the room beyond rises from his makeshift bed and comes to the security glass. He can’t be any older than twenty-five, but his gaunt face and sun-darkened skin project a man nearly twice that age. His head is unevenly shaved.

  He puts his hand on the glass and looks directly at me. I turn off the light, leaving him only in silhouette but giving him the chance to see my face.

  “I’m sorry,” I say as loudly as I dare. “I can’t help you. I can’t unlock the door.”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he says. “They’ll catch you.”

  “Are there more of you on the upper floors?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Not yet.”

  “I’m looking for a girl, around sixteen years old, named Phoebe.” My chest aches at having to ignore this man’s plight in favor of another’s, but I can only do so much—and not even that, apparently.

  “I don’t know that name,” he whispers, and the disappointment in his voice makes me feel even more guilty. Then he adds, “She’s probably not here. The girls, most of them, don’t do the heavy labor. Unless no one wants them. Unless no one bids. Are you her mother?”

  “No,” I reply. “But she’s my responsibility. I wish I could help you.”

  He spreads his fingers against the glass, pressing his face close. “If you find her, save her. And if you can’t save her, make it quick. You should go now. They’ll catch you.”

  When I hesitate, he repeats his last words, and I move away from the door. I place the flashlight back in its holster and hurry out of the building, back into fresh air.

  I’ve gambled and lost. I suppose it was always a long shot, but it was necessary to try. Now the job is going to get a lot harder. Twice now, once by implication, I’ve been told that Phoebe is in a different kind of hell from the one suffered by these workers. And she’s been gone three days.

  Three days. How much has she suffered already, and how much more will she suffer before we find her? If we find her. And even if we do, and she’s not traumatized beyond all recovery, there are still more like her. Many more. And I can’t save any of them.

  My eyes burn at my own impotence. I navigate a route directly back to the breach I made in the perimeter fence. It’s time to rejoin Barkov and Marilyn and to pray that they’ve had better luck. I find my Remington where I left it but don’t take it with me, since the G36 is going to serve me a lot better, and I don’t need the extra weight. I trek the dark and muddy distance back to exit seven.

  As I make my way down the ramp toward the HRV, I see my friends standing in the road, facing the street that leads to the perimeter gate. I stop short, my spine tingling. Something isn’t right.

  They knew I walked back up the ramp. They shouldn’t be expecting me from the other direction. They should be watching the loop, not the surface street.

  I crouch down in the deeper shadow of a tall tree and watch with a pounding heart.

  Barkov and Marilyn fared worse than I. They’ve become bait in a trap meant for me.

  DAY SIXTEEN, 12:00 A.M.

  I check the magazine of my confiscated G36: a full thirty rounds of 5.56 NATO ammunition. Despite being designed in Germany, this weapon takes ammunition r
eadily available throughout the former United States. I’m not too worried about wasting shots, though just to be safe I switch the fire selector to E: semiautomatic fire.

  Somewhat awkwardly, I sight through the scope, scanning the trees around the ramp. Marilyn would be easy to control, but Barkov would require at least two people to manage him. Probably more. I’m looking for a team, not a single ambusher.

  My friends have given them the impression that I’ll be coming from the street, not the highway. I expect Barkov did this, so he and Marilyn could signal to me that something was wrong by keeping their backs turned away from my approach, with the added benefit of focusing the ambushers’ attention in the wrong direction.

  It also means that the ambushers are probably a lot closer to me than I find comfortable. I’m on the high ground; they wouldn’t be stupid enough to take the low, surely. I sweep across to the trees on the other side of the ramp and spot a stray flash of metal in the moonlight, maybe thirty yards down the street.

  So I have one of them marked. But there must be more. Unfortunately, a second sweep across my field of vision produces no better result. I’m going to have to draw their fire—force them to reveal their locations.

  All of my frustrations, all of my recriminations, wash down the drains of my conscious thought. I no longer taste Conyers in my mouth. I slip back into a memory of my old life, my training. I tell myself that for the next few minutes I can simply get the job done. I can worry about the consequences to my soul later and pray I haven’t already traded away my humanity for the tools I need to finish this job.

  Carefully I climb back up to the loop, then move across to the center of the overpass. Slowly lifting my head and bringing the rifle into position, I find my original target through the scope. I venture to rise a little higher, just long enough to catch a glimpse of my friends. They don’t look like they’ve been hurt, but it’s clear they’re not happy with their situation. I see Marilyn whispering to Barkov, no doubt using fierce tones that match her expression.