First Days After

by Jay Vielle

  “Wes’s office, huh?” Jake said. “My, my, you sure have taken advantage of all of this, haven’t you?” Jake’s retort snapped me back into reality, leaving for a moment the conundrum that was Estela Fuentes and her not-deported, not-Mexican father who apparently lived here in Emmitsburg and was a member of the Church of Many Blessings.

  “That’s not all, Jake,” I said. “He has homeless families living in our classrooms. Both mine and yours!” I said.

  “And ours,” said Maureen, suddenly walking up with Al. “What the fuck, Wes? Who the fuck do you think you are, giving our rooms away?” Father Joe looked uncomfortable. The situation was getting away from him. Wendy looked uncomfortable as well. Tommy and Vinny seemed to be enjoying all of this.

  “Look, folks, I’ve already explained myself,” said Wes. “So did Father Joe.”

  “Don’t worry Wes,” said Jake. “We’ll get out of your hair. There’s room at the Fisher house,” he said. “And I have a feeling that despite the amazingly cordial welcome wagon you’ve put out here, that most of my people aren’t too keen on staying anyway.”

  “Room at our house?” Tommy said. “For eleven people?”

  “Nine,” said Maureen. “Al and I can stay at my place. We’ve no need to trouble you anymore. We can take some food stores from the bus to get us through a few days. Things seem to be normalizing here, at least a little bit. If we get in trouble, it looks like we can call you now. Thanks for all you did for us.” Maureen hugged Jake, then me. Jake smiled and nodded in acknowledgment. Al reached out his hand and shook Jake’s, looking him in the eye and nodding. He looked like he was fighting back tears.

  Glen and Jada looked up from their seat in the cafeteria where they were eating. The commotion in the rotunda had gotten their attention, but they had stayed and continued to tell their friends the tales of adventure they had just experienced. Jake looked over at them and waved.

  “Wes, I know I’m not in a position to ask for favors, but I’d like you to let Glen and Jada stay here,“ said Jake. “Their friends are here, and if they have any family left, those people will try here first after looking for them at home. They don’t care about the politics of adults. Keep them out of our battles. Agreed?”

  “Agreed. The children can stay here. We have plenty,” Wes said.

  “So that makes seven now. And we do have room for seven, boy,” Jake said to Tommy. Tommy nodded back.

  We made an uneasy temporary truce with Wes Kent and his people. As soon as he saw that we didn’t intend to stay and interfere with his plans for the school, he became cordial again. He and Lou Orville wished us luck, but no hands were shaken nor smiles offered as we walked down the long main hallway towards the teachers’ parking lot.

  “We are going to need vehicles,” said Jake. “And ours don’t start. At least they didn’t a week ago. We think the EMP’s knocked them out. We’re probably going to need new batteries, and we will probably also have to reboot the cars’ computers somehow.”

  “I can help with that,” Al said. “I know my way around a car engine and I really know my way around computers.”

  “Why didn’t you say that before we left?” I asked.

  “Jake found a bus that could take all of us. I thought that was the plan all along, anyway,” said Al.

  “Fair enough,” I answered back. “But where can we get car batteries in this town?”

  “We have car batteries at the Wal-Mart,” Estela said shakily. “Assuming they’re still there.”

  “Tommy, Vinny. Let’s get to work putting new batteries in our truck and whatever vehicles Ms. Kelly and Mr. DeFillipo have here. Al, I’m giving you two strong boys to help you. Let me know whatever else you need. We’ll all go to the Wal-Mart and see what’s left, then we can divvy up the supplies and make a plan to go forward,” said Jake. “Wendy, you still with us?” Wendy nodded and smiled.

  Mark Longaberger was staring at Jake like he wanted to say something. It was obvious.

  “Mark? You need something?” asked Jake.

  “Just want to talk to you for a second before you go,” he said.

  “Okay. Come on out to the bus with me and we’ll chat,” said Jake. Wes and Father Joe exchanged glances wordlessly. The rest of us walked out towards the bus. Mark pulled Jake aside once they got past the sidewalk.

  “I, I just want to say that I’m sorry things turned out the way they did,” said Mark.

  “I appreciate that, Mark,” said Jake.

  “I had some trepidation about the way you took charge at first. I don’t know, maybe it was just my own ego or insecurity or something, but in hindsight, it’s clear to me now that you were doing what you thought was best for all of us. You fought to let the Heffners in at first, then you fought off their attackers. You tried to protect us from going into what might await us outside, then once you realized it was safe, you were the first to do reconnaissance. I know we don’t see eye to eye on everything, but I kind of feel caught in the middle of all this. I stayed, but I don’t necessarily agree with a lot of things that Wes or this church are doing. I don’t want you to have any hard feelings,” Mark said, offering Jake his hand. Jake looked him in the eyes and shook his hand.

  “You’re a good man, Mark. It probably took a lot to say all that, and I will admit that I probably judged you too harshly as well. No hard feelings,” said Jake, nodding. Mark smiled.

  “But I do privately want to give you a little warning, and you can do with it what you want,” said Jake. “I know that you are involved with this church by default now, and on the surface they seem to be doing outreach and apparent massive acts of charity. But privately, I have always had misgivings about them and their true motives. I just would suggest that you watch your step around them. If I’m wrong, you lose nothing by being careful and I end up looking stupid. I can handle looking stupid. I’m getting quite used to it. But if I’m right, then you might avoid something that could turn out to be much worse. My gut tells me that these are not good people; that they wrap themselves up in flags and Bible verses to cover up feelings that represent the very worst in us. Just be careful. It’s easy to get seduced into their way of thinking. I know you were a good teacher, and I think you’re probably a good man, too. I’d hate to lose you.” Mark nodded, smiled, and shook again.

  And then we all mounted the bus and rode over to the Wal-Mart where this whole journey began.

  CHAPTER 22

  Jada and Glen happily joined their friends back at the school. The teenagers left there like Tanner Heffner and Casey Kirby were happy to have more people their age to talk with, and that left us adults with a clear conscience for having left them. Maureen and Al were still with us, but they would eventually disembark and go off to live their new lives, presumably together. The conundrum of Estela and who she really was, and what her relationship with Morgan would become was getting more entangled. With this new revelation about Estela’s past being invented, and now her father--a professor at the college--being the one who had disowned her and apparently driven away her former lover—all of that was a new revelation that only made things more convoluted. Her father’s new powerful deaconship at the Church of Many Blessings, and just what that church was trying to do with Hunter’s Run High School and the town of Emmitsburg were mysteries that would have to wait, but they were clearly in the back of everyone’s mind.

  It was clear what the remaining seven of us were going to do once we got our cars up and running and our stores re-supplied: we were all headed to Washington by any means necessary. Morgan and I were headed there to find our parents, the Fishers were headed there to find Laura, and Wendy lived there. It was the one piece that tied us all together.

  We entered the Wal-Mart carefully—meaning we had armed ourselves. Estela, Jake, and I had been forced to fight our way out of the place the last time we were here, and it was mostly good luck and Jake’s nerve that allowed it to happen. Now we had bigger numbers. The doors were more smashed. Someone had obviously come ba
ck to see about the store’s status. It had been picked through considerably. Mostly the electronic supplies, the grocery section, and the pharmacy area had the most damage. Some clothing racks had been knocked over, and the smell of human urine was in the carpeting. I never understood how humans devolved so quickly into animals in times of crisis, the mutates notwithstanding. At least the mutates had a good excuse.

  Estela was correct in her belief that the automotive section would be largely ignored. We grabbed half a dozen car batteries of varying sizes and put them in a cart, as no one seemed to know exactly what size battery their car would need. We rolled them up to the bus and put them in the compartment underneath the exterior. “Snag some tools, like wrenches and screwdrivers. Also, we’re going to need baking soda and a couple of towels,” said Al. “We’ll need them to reset the computers.”

  I grabbed the baking soda and towels. Jake and the boys grabbed car batteries and tools, and Wendy, Morgan, and Estela piled whatever food was left by looters into carts and we rolled them back to Hunter’s Run.

  “We need to unhook the old batteries and wipe down the battery cables with the baking soda solution,” Al said. He had put water and baking soda into a bucket and used his hands to stir. He had put on vinyl gloves from the box we had in the bus. We had to wait about forty minutes once we disconnected everything. Al said it was necessary for the reset. Then Jake and the boys put the new batteries in Jake’s truck as well as Maureen’s and Al’s cars, and hooked them up.

  “Now the moment of truth,” Al said, turning the key to his Mazda. The engine hummed right away. We all clapped. Maureen’s started right up as well. Vinny got in his dad’s truck and cranked it on.

  “If it was that easy all along,” I started.

  “We were in a bit of a hurry to leave last time,” Jake said. “Get off my ass.” I smiled.

  Then we realized that after a week of some pretty heavy sharing of adventures, we were splitting up. The moment hung for an eternity, then Maureen walked up to me smiling.

  Maureen gave me another long, hard, hug. “You are a phenomenal friend, Eddie,” she said. “Good luck finding your folks. Try calling or texting us when you get back. Who knows? If your voice mail made it through along with some of Jake’s texts to his boys, we may have communication completely back by the end of this week or sooner.”

  “Where will you go?” I asked.

  “We’ll stay at my place for a while, see if we can get things back up and running. There are people I want to try and contact too. We’ll be okay. You be careful,” she said. I kissed her on the cheek and hugged Al.

  “Jake, Eddie, it’s been an honor,” said Al. We all hugged, wished them luck, and then headed to Jake’s place.

  The drive didn’t take long. Jake lived only a few miles from the school. The town showed a little more life than it did the week before, when we had last taken this road. It was encouraging. It meant people were trying to get their lives re-started again.

  We pulled up to Jake’s house, and the first one there to greet us was Oklahoma, the tabby cat we had dropped off at the barn. He looked well fed and happy to see us. “Decided to come back to the house, did you boy?” asked Jake, rubbing Okie’s head. “Glad to see you made it okay all week.” Okie rubbed up against nearly everyone’s legs, and Estela bent down to pet him.

  “Remember me, Don Gato?” she asked. Jake smiled and stroked him a few times before going into the house. It smelled stale, like a house that had been shut down for a week with no fresh air.

  “Open some windows,” Jake said, and all of us found windows and opened them up.

  “We’ll crash here tonight, get some good rest, get some food in us, and try to come up with a plan for how we can sneak into Washington D.C. without the military holding us up,” Jake said. “Estela, Morgan, there’s a guest room for you two in the basement with your own bathroom. Wendy, there’s a guest room for you at the top of the stairs. Eddie, you get the couch in the living room,” Jake said.

  “Jake, look,” I said. The clock on his microwave oven was blinking.

  “Electricity!” I shouted. “It was off when we left. They must have found a way to get it back on!” Jake went over to the sink and ran the water. “Nice,” he said. “Creature comforts! Eddie, try the television.” I went over to the table where the remote control was sitting and pointed it at the television. I clicked it on, and the system had to reboot for a few minutes, but it looked like it was up and running. “Jake,” I said. “How do you have cable out here?”

  “A rich guy in the development out back wanted it, so he paid thousands of dollars to get it run down the main road. It was cheap for us to tap into it once he’d done that, so I get country views and city cable.”

  “I bet with electricity and cable that we might be able to get some news,” I said.

  On cue, the news channels came on and there was an aerial picture of Washington, D.C. coming through. The reporter was narrating:

  Welcome ladies and gentlemen, to what will be a brief and unorthodox broadcast for us tonight. We do not have full broadcast capabilities up and running at the moment, but we have been able to send this pre-recorded message through localized cable networks. The first round of bombings took place several days ago, and status reports from various cities and regions have been stalled due to the destruction of communication satellites. As of yet we have received no word about the status or the whereabouts of either the president or Congress. This is footage from a privately owned drone camera, courtesy of one of our loyal viewers. As you can see, while some parts of Washington have been demolished by conventional bombs, the majority of the city buildings have survived. Thousands are dead due to special new weaponry being used on the U.S., and it will likely be months before we have an accurate accounting on the complete death toll. The military has established Marshall law in Washington and has ordered the streets cleared. It has not been disclosed yet as to the reasoning behind it, but speculation is that it has had something to do with the sightings of groups of strangely dressed people in the area who are apparently attacking and apprehending individuals on the street. We have only had drone cameras up and running for several hours now, and so usable footage is still coming into our editing room. There are alleged eyewitness accounts of gang attacks on citizens, according to one source who has spoken to us on condition of anonymity. If you look here, you can see a band of ten people, all apparently in matching masks, chasing and apprehending an individual. We should warn you that the following scene depicts graphic violence and viewer discretion is advised.

  And then we saw them. The mutates. This bunch was in the nation’s capital, however, not in Frederick at the Fort. Despite what the newsman said, we knew that those weren’t masks they were wearing, and we also knew why they were apprehending people on the streets. The video footage was from a long distance, but for about four or five seconds, the camera had zoomed in on the face of one of the upright leaders of the mutates. It was a tall, slender woman, and she was pointing to and directing other mutates on all fours.

  “Eddie, stop,” Jake said. I grabbed the remote and hit the pause button.

  “Back it up.” I hit the ten-second reverse button.

  “A little more. To the part where they zoom in on the face.” I obliged again.

  “Get ready to pause it. Now. Pause it now.”

  I hit the pause button. And the world changed.

  “Oh dear God,” I said. Jake’s face went white. Estela and Wendy looked confused. Morgan too. But Tommy and Vinny looked sick to their stomachs. Jake’s eyes bugged, and his mouth dropped.

  “God almighty,” Jake whispered.

  It took me a second, then I realized what they were looking at. I didn’t know what to say. I was horrified, and was horrified for them as well.

  “Dad,” said Vinny. “Do you see? That close-up. The orange thing?”

  Jake nodded back at Vinny weakly.

  “It’s mom.”

  BOOK TWO IN THE CATACLYM SER
IES: FIRST WEEKS AFTER

  With the sudden realization that Laura Fisher has become a mutate, Jake and his sons are now clearly driven to find her in Washington. Wendy Yubashiri needs to find her research partner at the Pentagon, and get back to work on discovering more about the mysterious mutates. Eddie Reyes and Morgan Branson needs to find their parents. How will the crew get into the capital city that has roads blocked by tanks and Marshall Law in effect? Will we find out the true story behind Estela Fuentes? What is the Church of Many Blessings up to with all of their recent activity and discussion of a “new world,” and how will that affect the reticent Mark Longaberger, who becomes less confident in their intentions with each passing day? To answer these questions, we must join our crew in Book Two of the Cataclysm Series: First Weeks After.

  THANK YOU to the many individuals who inspired characters and to whom I have gone for information, including Colonel (Retired) Ray Naworol, CC Fausnet, and the many friends who have endured my asking for proof reading, mild criticism and advice. I could not have done it without you.

  IN MEMORIAM—to my dear friend Kurt Eglseder, who told me years ago when I was searching for some direction in life: “You need to write.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR J.V. Lowe is a career educator and coach. For thirty years he has taught English and Spanish and coached and officiated wrestling at both the high school and college levels, and is a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He has written both detective and science fiction and well as non-fiction articles. He and his family live in rural northern Maryland.