“Na. Pa says he’s busy telling that fat Kopland bitch to go fuck herself.” The now not so chubby daughter said. There was a chance she might grow up to be halfway decent looking, assuming she stopped dipping tobacco and cussing at everyone.
“Do you kiss your old man with that mouth?” Ethan laughed and asked about the price of a box of nails. It was within his range to trade for and he set down the re-stamped dollar coin. Someone in town was an amateur engraver and had set about putting a rather ornate Old English “S” on each coin. The money system was fledgling, but you could get a gallon of gas for a buck fifty, and that suited most people just fine. So long as you could provide bank statements you also got a bank credit for the amount you used to have. Refugees were given credit to a certain limit, and a tax on imported goods over half a ton was put in place. Most of these bills passed the Hall of Representatives the first go ‘round, as tax money would go a long way towards paying the servicemen and the construction workers tirelessly fortifying the town.
Taking his box of nails out to the patrol car, and by patrol car it was actually a Ford Escort with a sheriff’s star painted on the side only because it was a fuel efficient compact while offering a sealed box in case you needed to wait for rescue from Zim. There was no one in town the Sheriff’s department didn’t know, and no car they didn’t have on record. Chases didn’t happen, even though many a speeding ticket was written. Driving a V8 Hemi powered Police Charger in slow motion all over town was a waste of fuel and so most patrol cars were either mothballed or put on standby. Ethan drove back to his house and found Mary wasn’t home. Instead Lee was passed out on the couch, his Beretta M9 tucked discretely under the throw pillow. His brother had needed to catch some sleep and the barracks were undergoing their “Spring G.I. Party” after a bunch of teenage girls had been caught drinking moonshine with the younger cavalrymen. The men were all privates again for that stunt, and the First Sergeant wanted to find the rest of their moonshining equipment before someone made a bad batch and went blind or blew themselves up. Lee didn’t want to have to hear that kind of tough love at any time of day. It could give one such a migraine.
Walking up to the couch Ethan poked his brother, “Hey. Lee.”
“Yes?” Lee said groggily.
“I think there’s something you need to check out.”
“Later.”
“Well, considering he’s been missing all winter, I don’t guess a couple more hours are gonna matter either way.” Ethan started to rummage for something to eat.
Lee opened an eye, “Heard something about Newton?”
“Just a hunch. When’s the last time someone checked the caverns?”
“We never got around to it. Too much to do, can’t spare the manpower.” Lee sighed. He loved each and every one of his troops, but they were as troublesome as defiant teenagers.
“I think that might be the point.”
“Well, you’re more than welcome to check it out.” Lee closed his eyes again, this time tilting his hat to cover them.
Ethan kicked the couch with his left leg, “In case you haven’t noticed I’ve been on every hair-brained mission that’s come up since Keith and I got here. I’d send Allen, but he’s a nervous wreck too. Look, this Where’s Newton thing is getting old. Just take a squad and go look. Please?”
“Fine. I’ll put the mission on the docket.” Lee rolled over and went back to sleep. Ethan spent the next hour in the throne room reading the book Fight Club before going back to the police station to collect Mary. She was due soon and walking wasn’t her strong suit anymore. Ethan turned the corner toward the mayor’s office and heard the shouting through the thick oak doors.
To Ethan’s lack of surprise Kenly was arguing with a number of teachers from the school. He was harrumphing and waving a lit cigar about so much the circulating air made the tip glow. “No! You are not teaching this fucking bullshit curriculum! You retards forget I have a Master’s Degree in Architecture, so I promise you I know how to read. I’m a hillbilly by birth and a well-educated man choice. You will not teach Liberal Progressive, anti-Capitalist, un-American bullshit to a bunch of kids who’ve just watched their world burn down around them. They need something to believe in, and right now a little Patriotism can go a long way.” Kenly swatted a stack of papers off his desk. “Let me make this clear and simple, so’s you pinko-commies can understand me. You don’t have a Teacher’s Union anymore. No Democrat Party to bankroll your bitching, or an ACL-fucking-U to call the media hounds. No one is going to defend this gibberish. Hell, your books have half of the curriculum covering multiculturalism, teamwork and tolerance instead of real-world survival skills like mathematics, social studies and history, English -for fuck sake-, Agriculture and Hunting, and Auto Mechanics and Home Repair. That was our agreed upon curriculum when I first took office. We agreed that the school system before the Apoc was more geared towards standardized test scores and babysitting irresponsible parent’s heathen children than practical education, and that you decided to change that… Well, I guess you did just that. NOW CHANGE IT BACK TO WHAT I SAID OR GET THE FUCK OUT!”
Kenly seethed for a moment while one of the female teachers started crying and left the room. Two more left in indignation. He flipped them off as the made their way out. “Well, what are you two waiting for?”
The remaining two teachers, an elderly woman who’d been teaching near Kansas City since the 1970’s, and Juan Smith, the man from the day the C-130 went down didn’t flinch at Kenly’s harsh attitude. They didn’t seem too keen to defend the largely useless curriculum their colleagues had come up with. They might have been the nay votes recorded in some places.
“Hey, Juan.” Ethan smiled, “I haven’t seen you since…”
“I left for a while. I made it as far as Ft. Leonard Wood and realized I was tired of walking and was probably going to die soon. There’s a lot of fucking Zims near that place.” Juan shook his head. “I figured I could make a go of it here, and from the looks of it I was needed more than I thought.” Jaun’s eyes leveled at Kenly.
“And you?” Kenly motioned to Mrs. Wu. She looked so out of place for someone who’d survived the Apocalypse. Most people were in good shape, or had gotten into good shape to survive. Mrs. Wu had an ornate cherry wood cane with polished brass at either end, and a mallard’s head someone had painstakingly carved by hand. She wasn’t Asian, but her husband had been one of the many Japanese Americans who’d served in the European theatre during The War to End All Wars: Part Deuce (aka WW2). To the best of anyone’s knowledge he’d passed away sometime in the eighties, shortly after investing in a small company named Apple.
“I’ve been a teacher all my life, Mayor Aaron Kenly, since I was 19 years old. I’ve seen more administrations come and go than I care to count. I don’t give a good God damn if you’re a Conservative or a stark raving Commie. I am here to teach young people how to be educated young ladies and gentiles. I’ll be at what’s left of the grade high school doing my life’s work whether you want me there or not.” Mrs. Wu leaned on her cane a little bit, probably done talking, waiting for Kenly’s response.
Kenly nodded. “Good. I’d rather have two teachers who are politico-neutral than fifty teachers who are only here to promote an agenda that hasn’t meant anything in some time. Gives me hope.” Kenly pointed to the stack of papers on the ground. “Common sense. That’s all I want from you two. Not a two thousand page study in idiocracy. Teach kids what they need to know in the world we live in now. There’s gonna be a whole generation of uneducated cavemen out there, feral men and women who lack even the most basic human skills, others will make the commoners during the Middle Ages look like Harvard educated types. If our young are educated, and the wild people’s are not, we have the tactical and economic advantage. Catch my drift?”
“I think we can deliver, Mr. Mayor.” Juan said. Apparently he’d been expecting this. “I have here, in this folder, two little papers. They outline the charter for the first post-Envier Virus, Missouri T
erritory School.” He handed it to Kenly. “Basically, I am suggesting we run our schools more like Japan’s. Not in the aspect that we teach only memorization without context, but that we require by law all children in grades K through 10 to attend school only during the winter months when planting is impossible. The courses will be from seven in the morning until five in the evening and will be concentrating on real world knowledge needed to survive, including classes on how to deal with the Zombie Infection. There are, of course, classes on the common subjects of Math, Science, History and Language. There is nothing political in it, it’s all straight forward.”
“Gimme the night to read it.” Kenly was finally calm enough to put a new cigar in his mouth. He didn’t light it. He was too angry to enjoy the flavor.
Ethan interjected, “This isn’t Soviet Russia, Juan, we can’t force anyone to do anything, include attend school. Personally, I would also like to see a Students Bill of Rights. Call me crazy, but I think that would do more to stamp out Liberal Progressive Totalitarianism in schools than any other tactic. I think we can all agree we don’t need another generation raised to hate America like the teenagers of today. I can barely stand to speak to them. If I had the manpower I’d have kids who don’t stand for the National Anthem thrown in-”
“Sheriff… Shut up.” Kenly said, searching for his matches. He didn’t need to hear Ethan rant, not after his blood pressure had already been so high.
The two remaining teachers left the police station. “Lee’s already on it, but I got a tip that Newton might be somewhere near Meramec Caverns.” Ethan reached over the desk and flipped open an antique Zippo lighter to light Kenly’s cigar.
“Whatever.” Kenly fell back into his chair in a cloud of aromatic smoke. “If you find him, tell him he’s fucking fired.”
Ethan laughed, “Alright. I have gate duty at the Japan Outpost tonight, so I’m gonna go home and take a nap.”
“Still putting yourself on the roster?” Kenly seemed surprised.
“I kinda have to. We’re stretched so thin we only get one day a week off, and that’s assuming no one is sick.”
“Well, we’re sorta running out of able bodied citizens who would even want to do the Deputy’s job. Can’t trust most newcomers to wear a badge and be the wall between the people and danger of any kind. We’ve got almost everyone else tied up with shooting stray Zims, guarding The Wall or making repairs to existing buildings. We just have no one to rotate out. Pink Floyd (The Wall’s nickname) is gonna be done in a month or so, so you can get more men then. Just make do for now, Sheriff.”
Ethan looked over his shoulder and saw Mayor Aaron Kenly’s much younger wife bring in a chilled bottle of Southern Comfort and two shot glasses. He was no longer welcome in the Mayor’s Office because it was about to get inappropriate in there. Just to make a sick joke at Ethan’s expense Kenly wouldn’t be above doing what he was about to do to this rather plump woman right in front of the Sheriff. Ethan headed for the Japan Outpost when it was time, listening to the crickets and breathing mostly fresh air through the windows he felt safe enough to roll down. He saw the Cavalry loading up and staging vehicles at the truck stop, getting ready for a mass movement. Parking the “Patrol Car” in the only space left in the lot, Ethan walked up to the nearest soldier.
“Excuse me Corporal, but isn’t twenty one hundred hours a strange time to conduct a convoy?”
“Cap’m said he wants to conduct a patrol, afraid I can’t tell you where, I have no idea why either, Sheriff. Apparently this patrol has been deemed classified.” The redheaded corporal snuffed out his cigarette and heaved his assault pack into a 5-ton.
“That’s fine. Carry on.” Ethan spotted Lee and walked up to him. Over the din of the diesel powered LMTV’s, M1114’s and ASVs he could barely hear himself think. “I didn’t think you’d go tonight. The weather’s crap. There’s no real rush, bro.”
Lee shrugged. “I don’t expect to find anything, but it would be good to know what’s there. Not to mention we haven’t had many night missions, and my boys need the practice. Like they used to say, ‘If it ain’t raining, you ain’t training.”
“You got enough batteries for all that?” Ethan pointed to a tough-box marked as night vision gear. “NVG’s and Thermals eat batteries like a 90’s CD player.”
“Yeah, we found a few warehouses here and there. We’re good to go. We’ll be back just before dawn.” Lee seemed less than interested in the mission. He wasn’t even wearing any body armor or helmet. The Cavalrymen wore soft-caps and slung their rifles lazily behind them like they just out for another bumpy ride in a big tan truck.
“Don’t you think you should gear up?” Ethan suggested. “Lord knows I hate ACH’s and IBA’s as much as the next Joe, but you don’t know what’s there.”
Lee nodded in appreciation. “Our heavy gear is in the last truck. If we run into survivors we’ll back off and suit up. You really should read the new SOPs. I don’t want to see an entire generation of my men with back and knee damage from carrying all that crap. They have enough to carry already.”
Ethan rolled his eyes. “Alright man, I’ll be monitoring the radio all night. You even get a funny feeling and I’ll kick Second Lieutenant Olsen out of his bunk and send him running with the QRF.”
“If I need help bad enough for someone to wake him up I’ll call you first. You should send a Redshirt to wake him, though. Whoever goes into his hut might not come back out.” Lee and Ethan both laughed. Though Ethan had only met Lieutenant Olsen in passing, the Cavalry’s new XO had an infamous temper forged in the fires of having been one of the first men over the berm into Iraq during Gulf War I. He had the medals and patches and papers prove it, that and he’d ended his military career by beating a second lieutenant with the man’s own car antennae after the befuddled officer had hit Olsen’s brand new Dodge Challenger. He wasn’t allowed to reenlist, but, like Ethan, had been drafted back only to be little more than a bump in the road to the zombie hordes.
After driving off Ethan found the Japan Outpost in good order. He wasn’t one to stick to ceremony or SOP’s, so long as the job got done, how it got done was irrelevant. The most contact this checkpoint encountered anymore was the occasional stray zombie. The last living human to find them had been a little boy, maybe seven years old. Dirty and so wild as to have almost forgotten how to speak, he would probably need adult supervision his entire life. Civilization had only been gone less than a year, and already those left behind were losing touch. It was sad to see, but at least this boy could perhaps be saved. How many children would be lost to the world as the last memories of the world were lost to them?
“Sup, Sam?” Ethan said, waving to the deputy at the machine gun. He was reading a Farmer’s Almanac, a highlighter in one hand, a pen in the other. Who knew what he was doing with it.
“Hey, Sheriff. You here to relieve Wigg? That little fucker is driving me nuts.”
“Yeah.” Ethan knocked on the door of the outpost. “Wigg, you in there?”
“Sheriff!?” Came a shocked voice.
“Yeah, if you read your fucking roster you’d know I was coming here tonight.” The door swung open and Wigg did his best to button his shirt back up, his belt still undone. Ethan stepped back and laughed. Deputy Sam joined in the laughter. “What on Earth are you doing?”
“I… uh… was well…” Wigg had not expected to be caught playing naked twister. Poking his head around the corner Ethan found an extremely embarrassed looking teenage girl trying her best to button up a bra that wasn’t cooperating.
“Miss Davis, do you really think your father would approve of you being here this late?” Ethan recognized the girl. In town she was Miss Prim and Proper, but get her outside the boarder and outside her dress (apparently), and leather and high heeled boots was the order of the day. If Ethan had been even a moment later who knew what young Cassandra Davis would have done to poor Cadet Wigg.
The girl, bright red hair with freckles all over, turned th
e color of her hair. Ethan stifled a laugh as she got dressed, went outside and got in her car with a poorly packed duffle bag of bondage gear. The rusted out Pontiac Aztec squealed and took off into the night toward town. They all turned to Wigg. “I think she took my uniform pants, Sheriff.” He said, his face turning as red as a fire engine.
Ethen turned slowly, deliberately, toward Wigg and gave the boy his best Dirty Harry glare. “Just push, Deputy.” Wigg sighed and started doing pushups. Ethan and Deputy McPherson settled in to watch Wigg begin to sweat in his uniform top and boots, but no pants. “Ya know what would make this moment even better?” McPherson said. Ethan didn’t even have to ask. “Beer.” They both said, cracking open a cold one each from the lunch cooler, prepared to watch the horny teenager sweat till dawn.
(*) (*) (*)
After reaching the river valley bottom where the tourist attraction Meramec Caverns was located, Third Platoon dismounted and began walking in column formation on either side of the road at the first river access. They had orders for Light and Noise Discipline, and to use their blades to dispatch zombies rather than opening fire unless they were overwhelmed. The trucks were all turned off and hopefully the entire unit could remain silent rather than tipping off whomever, or whatever was there.
Lee walked with the lead platoon, but he nor anyone else found signs of habitation in recent months. Small campsites with weather beaten tents and blood stains through claw marks amidst wrecked cars and more bloody clothing littered the campgrounds, but it was all old. Lee had read the news report about the zombie attack at the cavern, an early outbreak before the government was willing to admit the outbreak had made it well outside the Nogales area. Lee had thought it was a shame back then for such a neat place to be closed by the CDC. There were no Zims here now, despite its proximity to the river. Actually, there was a conspicuous lack of Zims or evidence of them. A smaller cave that had been barred off years before would have been an excellent place to hide or catch a respite, but there was nothing in it, not even a stash of supplies or trash from survivors. People on the run always left trash.
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