Partholon

by D Krauss

  John was the only Loner actually working that he knew of, which probably made him his own category – maybe Unorganized Neutral Good, Cat Negative Zero. It definitely made him someone to avoid. Having a job was one step away from the CDC or the army. A giant step, to be sure, and one he would never take, but no one else knew that.

  Some Bundys, Unorganized Evil Cat #1? Probably not. Their day was pretty much over. Right after the Event, the sudden loss of authority brought them out in droves, like taking the cross off Dracula’s coffin. But there’d been a rapid downturn in their fortunes.

  It’s not like they were the savviest to begin with, not the A-Team, like Bundy himself or Ramirez, pick your favorite serial killer. They were mostly wannabes, held in check by their fear of capture, which, of course, went out the window when everything collapsed. The bench took the field, sadists and rapists and murderers, all. John found their work more than he found them: a raped and disemboweled woman left rotting on a trash heap, a child burned to death while tied to a pole, that sort of thing.

  But they were clumsy and obvious and made the mistake of going up against their betters. The Zone had rapidly become a shoot-first society – even kids were heavily armed – and the Bundys didn’t stand a chance, especially against Families. Especially alone.

  Which was why Bundys evolved, er, devolved, into Vandals, UEC #2, or, as John liked to say it, Yuk Number Two. John hefted the 14 at the thought and swung it through an arc, aiming back at the campus and making pow pow sounds. Yeah, fucking jackass Vandals. No doubt, he’d run across a few of them today.

  Good.

  Two or three Bundys banded together for mutual protection and what do you have? Multiplied chaos, of course, and the damage just one Vandal group could do was amazing. John lost the Osborne Building and Kay Chapel to them. They had a high old time in the Chapel, defecating on the Bible and the Koran, vomiting in the wafer plate, setting the place, mercifully, on fire with whiskey they had brought along for fun.

  Half the building went up and it was now an open, burned shell, one wall remaining with some kind of pagan ankh tag spray-painted on it. John would love to catch the jerks who did that, see how they liked a whiskey fire. John patted his flask affectionately through the jacket.

  Probably would never catch them, but no matter. Someone would. Vandals were episodic, like tornadoes – forces of nature that came in unexpectedly, wreaked havoc, and disappeared. Unlike tornadoes, though, Vandals made a lot of mistakes, a lot of noise, left trails easy to follow, fell asleep drunk at the foot of their latest burning, killed each other, and generally self-destructed.

  John found them in various conditions all over the campus and dispatched them unmercifully. No trials, no arrests, no plea-bargains, just kill them. They were Bundys; they deserved nothing more. The Families agreed with John on that point. He was sure the Loners did, too.

  John smiled grimly. So let’s be about it.

  First things first.

  John sat down at the Customer Service desk, the Daily Reports stacked on one side, the Security Observations on the other. He read the last four Observations.

  Yeah, he wrote them, he knew what was in them, but, if there was one thing he discovered early in his career, a set of fresh eyes on an old report could do wonders. Some innocuous forgotten little tidbit will suddenly leap out and presto, a whole new case. So, always review.

  The Observations were narratives with a Findings and Recommendations area, not for distribution. Wouldn’t do to advertise the vulnerabilities, would it? He used them to spot trends and make the necessary adjustments. Say he noticed someone attacked the left side of the Watkins Art door with some kind of pry bar, if something similar happened somewhere else, he’d link them because he had a good cop’s memory for the small, odd details. Figure the pattern, like day of the week, and lay a trap with a timed or trip-wired Claymore. Might end up killing some innocent Loner, but hey, the cost of doing business.

  Without him intending it, the Observations had become documentation of the local disintegration... hmm, that’s kinda catchy. Even just a casual read disclosed the decay and downward spiral. Wreckage, theft, anarchy... what’s next? Pagan sacrifice and demon worship? He chuckled grimly. That may not be far off.

  He didn’t bother with the Dailies until the end of the day, writing them in a stylized format with headings and Roman numerals, the more ornate the better. A sort of Book of Kells for the end of the world. If he was huddling in his monastery while the Vikings ravaged the land, he might as well make the product look good. Besides, the flourishes fooled civilians, made them think the bulleted, brusque, maddening language cops love so much, actually said more than it really did. Understatement, short, sweet, and to the point, the things not said, communicating volumes to other cops while baffling outsiders. Cop style, developed in reaction to defense lawyers’ penchant for isolating one word out of a report and making a big and irrelevant deal out of it, like rhyming “fit” and “acquit.” So, the fewer words, the better.

  Not that anyone was reading his few words. He didn’t have a website to post the Dailies and he certainly wasn’t going to spend a few hours stapling them to bulletin boards. He left a stack in the roundabout located next to Dispatch, putting the latest one on top before quitting time. Somebody wanted to read ’em, they could come get a copy.

  Yeah. Right.

  He used to print the Observations on separate pages for comparison, or split-screen them, using dates and building names as markers. Great tool, but with the scarcity of viable gas, he only ran the generator long enough to charge his Zap batteries, certainly not to run the computers. So he was back to the good ole days, when all the reports were typewritten. In triplicate. With carbons. Ha, he was back even before that. You couldn’t find a typewriter anymore, much less a set of carbons. His reports were a hand job now, yuk yuk.

  Things, left to themselves, deteriorate. Some kind of physical law, that; maybe one of Newton’s, or was it that Ontogeny, Philogeny phrase he could never remember? Should read up on it, but no need. Since the Event, John had ample and redundant proof, starting with the power grid.

  The electricity stayed on far longer than he expected. That was good, on the one hand, because he’d enjoyed the amenities of civilization for quite some time, but bad, on the other, because it meant automatic heat pumps kept running.

  That had resulted in several unpleasant surprises when he started burying everyone on his block. But there was no way in hell the power would last and he had to do something before it died, so John went to Home Depot and picked up five Coleman Powermate 6250s, still boxed.

  It took him three trips, three or four days and a strained back to get them home and set up. It was winter and cold, and trying to put those blasted things in strategic places where they could run without detection, was a real bear. He worried the electricity would go off and leave him stranded mid-installation, but that didn’t happen. It stayed on even through his switch to the Magnums, God bless Virginia Power.

  Made him feel like an idiot, after working so hard to get his systems ready, to see the streetlights coming on every night. But, one day, phffft, gone, leaving him pretty smug about his foresight.

  Smugness came later, though. In the beginning, he felt like a dolt. It quickly became apparent the Colemans weren’t going to work. They were small, too small to run a house. They had two 120 volt outlets and one 120/240. Three plugs, that’s it. Try to run a refrigerator, a couple of air conditioners or small space heaters (depending on the time of year), microwaves (forget the stove, it’s gas), the computer, satellite, phone charger and some lights on that. Forget it.

  Worse, he had to place the Colemans around the house, close enough to doors and windows where he could run cords from them to whatever. That meant gaps, which let in more cold air than the space heaters could overcome, not to mention inviting dogs and other critters to nose around.

  He thought about drilling through the walls to get the cords in and out, but never got that
far because just running the Colemans was causing him headaches. They had five-gallon gas tanks and would go about 10-11 hours on one fill-up, which is damn good for occasional use. But he needed them every night and that meant about 15-20 gallons a day, which is a lot of gasoline to store, something that had its own problems.

  Also, one Coleman is silent, two give off a low-level hum, but five? He couldn’t figure out how to muffle the engines so no passing Raider would hear them. Then, of course, there was the exhaust, a real problem because it wafted down the block. Even the most stuffed-up Bundy could smell it.

  So he went back to Home Depot and rummaged around some more and found a couple of Onan RS-12000 Home Generators. True power plants, stand-alones that could hide behind the house and hook directly into the circuit box. They put out 11 kilowatts and about 80-90 amps. So, okay, he couldn’t run the entire house but could keep a lot of stuff going, including the pool.

  The Onans didn’t need a concrete pad or any kind of hard foundation; set them down, hook them up and flip a switch. There was even a video in the box explaining how to install them and it looked pretty easy, even for a klutz like him. Little victory dance right there in the aisle.

  He was calculating how to get them home when something on the box stopped him cold. They ran on natural or LP gas. Natural gas was out, too volatile and pretty much shut off by that time. LP gas, please. He didn’t know anything about LP gas, how long it lasts, how to store it, volatility, all that. And where in the world was he going to get that much of it? He stopped dancing, sat down on the floor and said, “Fuck.”

  Stumped. Destined for a quasi-eighteenth-century life, running the Colemans every once in a while to keep the fridge and pool going (if he could ever figure out the pool) and maybe catch the news sometimes. Oh well, better than nothing, so John resigned to it.

  But, a few weeks later, he was driving around the Newington Road industrial complex just to see what was back there when he topped a hill and – chorus of angels – saw them. A long row of yellow Magnum MMG12 Standby Mobile Generators, sitting in the back of a huge VDOT parking lot, along with backhoes and snowplows and dump trucks. He couldn’t believe it. He knew what they were, having seen a few during his Air Force days. He smashed open the gate with his bumper and pulled right up to one. Please don’t use LP gas, please, and... they didn’t. They used diesel.

  He did the victory dance and then towed two of them home.

  Wasn’t theft. He filled out a piece of paper with his name and credit card number and taped it to one of the remaining Magnums. For all he knew, the slip was still there, unread, because he’d never seen a sudden charge for power generators appear on his statement. He figured they go for about 14 or 15,000 each, so it would be interesting if some VDOT bureaucrat came along one day, found the paper, and hit his account. There’s no way he could pay it; a shame, because he liked American Express. They’d been real good to him, keeping the account open although he barely used it, even enclosing a note every once in a while in the bill, keep your chin up, that kind of thing.

  John ordered a book or CD for Collier over the phone from time to time, charged the account, and then sporadically paid for it through his bank, also over the phone. AE didn’t give him a hard time about due dates or late fees or anything like that. Sometimes they even told him not to worry about the charge, consider it a gift. Real good people, but probably wouldn’t remain so if $30,000 suddenly appeared. He’d have to work something out because he didn’t want to stiff them.

  Of course, some Raider could find the paper and start tapping his account. If that happened, he could claim fraud and get out of the payment altogether. But then he’d be no different from a Raider, would he? He wondered if there was some way to get the charge placed on his equity loan. Maybe the finance company could send him another foreclosure notice, ha ha.

  After he got the Magnums home, the real work started, more than necessary, of course, because John was scared to death of electricity. Pre-Event, he would shut down the entire house just to change an outlet, something Theresa thought quite hilarious.

  He couldn’t help it; electricity gave him the willies and hooking up the Magnums kept him on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Couple that with his natural clumsiness and an almost pathological stupidity when it came to home repairs... slow going.

  It took him about a month to puzzle it all out, put slot A into Tab B, all that crap. When he thought it was finally ready, he cringed, held his breath and threw the switch on the first Magnum, fully expecting to blow up the house and fry himself at the same time. It didn’t and he didn’t and he was quite pleased with the result, although, of course, he didn’t have a fully powered house. That was a bit beyond him. All the necessities and some luxuries were running though.

  It was a jury-rigged system. He went back to Home Depot and took one of the 200-amp transfer panels from the Onans and hooked it to his circuit-breaker box. Onan’s manual was real clear on how to link the two panels and had enough hints about connecting to the power source that he didn’t have too much trouble wiring to the Magnum. There was a lot of drilling and praying involved, but it worked.

  He wasn’t sure Onan would be too happy about his mixing the components, but, their Board, if there still was a Board, should be proud of the product.

  He had to play with the panel to figure out which systems were going to run and he ended up shutting down some parts of the house because they just wouldn’t draw the current very well. Those were mostly upstairs; Theresa’s sewing room and Collier’s bedroom, but he didn’t use them, anyway.

  Only one outlet worked in the master bedroom but despite that, he still slept there, using one of the floor air conditioners or a space heater to keep him comfortable. That is, until it was too hot or cold for those appliances, then he’d wrap himself in a blanket (or stay naked) and groggily trudge down to the fully powered basement. Had to be pretty extreme, though, to force him out of his beloved bed.

  All the lower rooms closest to the panel were running great. Some vital things, like the refrigerator and the pool pump, worked fine too. Just upstairs gave him trouble. One day, he was going to pull some books about wiring and figure out what’s wrong.

  The Magnums were his antidote to the eigheenth-century life. They had a lot of features, primarily a 57-gallon fuel tank which he could run for about two days straight before refilling. Because he didn’t run them all the time, just when home, one tank lasted about a week. They had safeties built in, too, like an automatic disconnect if he, or someone else, lifted the lug box. The box and power panel actually locked, but he couldn’t find any keys when he stole (bought) them. There was an automatic shutdown if the system detected an engine problem and a kill switch he could easily get to if something went wrong.

  There was even a “low oil” light and one to replace the air cleaner. That could be a problem because he didn’t have any spares, unless he went back to the yard and raided the remaining Magnums. Neither light had come on yet, so he’d worry about that later.

  He ran one Magnum all night long, mainly to power the security system and the air conditioners in summer, space heaters in winter, pool pump all year, and all the other stuff he needed. On a schedule, he shut the main one down and fired up the other – that “things left to themselves” law.

  He even ran the Colemans on a schedule for a few hours. They were a much bigger pain but you never knew what would happen – the Magnums might die, the diesel might go flat, the wiring might break, and then, suddenly, the Colemans were critical. If he didn’t maintain them, they’d crap out when he needed them most, which was another law. He figured the whole setup would last a few more years. What he was going to do after everything inevitably broke down, he didn’t know. Maybe Virginia Power would be back by then.

  Ha.

  Why worry about mechanical failure? He was going to suffer fuel breakdown before the Magnums went, anyway. He had poured hundreds of bottles of gas stabilizer into the diesel tanker as a precaution, b
ut he had no idea if that stuff even worked on diesel, so it may have been a waste. In time, he’d know.

  He’d thought about hauling a Magnum up here and hooking up the office. Be better than the Coleman, better than the crapped-out-not-worth-fixing Public Safety backup generator sitting like a beached whale in the back. He remembered that thing firing up during power outages Before, sounding like a 747 on final approach and pouring fumes through his office window. Same thing with a Magnum, so forget it.

  He’d had a devil of a time dropping the noise signatures at home to about a half a block, the undertone from the motor’s vibrations carrying much farther than that, almost down to Daventry. Nothing he could do. Diffused enough, though, so ambling Raiders couldn’t immediately tell where it was coming from, which should give him enough time to arm up before they figured it out. Especially since they’d be led next door.

  That’s where he’d sited the primary Magnum – inside his neighbor’s house, hidden from sight and mostly sound. It had been a struggle of epic proportions getting that monster through her patio door and into the living room. He had to rig a block and pulley system and maneuver it into place because the thing was so damn heavy, almost two tons. He took out the room divider between her dining and living rooms, but, overall, not too much damage.

  He worried her floor couldn’t handle the weight but she didn’t have a basement so what would be the worst outcome, a drop of a couple of feet onto the foundation slab? No big deal.

  Her house acted as one gigantic muffler. It also acted as a gas chamber. Running the Magnum sucked out the oxygen in about ten minutes and he had seriously considered using an oxygen mask to go back and forth, but that had its own problems so, instead, he knocked a hole in her ceiling and vented the fumes through a hose out her attic. It was still dangerous but at least he wouldn’t fall over dead in about three seconds when he walked in to shut it off.