by Jason Frost
"Well, you want me to take a group of people out into the Dead Zone to meet with a group from another camp across town. What are they called?"
"El Dorado Center," Trevor said. "They staked out the stores at that shopping center on the corner of El Dorado and Hastings."
"What kind of stores?"
"Let's see, they have an Angel's Hardware, Thrifty Drugs…"
"A pet store," Dr. Dreiser added. "Bought my cat there two years ago."
Trevor counted them off on his fingers. "They've got a grocery store there, a Lucky's or a Ralph's."
"Ralph's," Toni Tyler said. "And a Kentucky Fried Chicken, some clothing stores, a place that rents video movies, an ice cream store, a Japanese restaurant."
"Okay," Eric held up his hand. "That gives me an idea. They certainly have enough to make good their offer."
"That's right," Griff Durham said, staring at Eric. He was a big man, with broad shoulders and a doughy face made comic by thick, bushy eyebrows and a pencil-thin moustache. He wore a red plaid hunting jacket and carried a Walther P-38 tucked in his waistband, the only working gun in camp. He was used to getting what he wanted and didn't take it well if he didn't. No matter how much the world around him changed, he never would. He looked at everybody as if sizing them up for a fist fight, which he'd had his share of too. "We could use those generator parts they offered, son. Your last mission didn't do too well in that area."
Eric turned to face Durham, his face placid, his voice calm. "Not my mission, Griff. As I recall, it was some brilliant planning on this Council's part that was responsible for sending Matt Southern and his men out there. You sent them out without consulting me, while you knew I was busy reinforcing the perimeters near the library."
"Mat Southern was an experienced police officer," Dr. Epson said, "with six years-"
"Matt Southern was a kid who'd never handled anything more dangerous than a drunken football player during Homecoming Week. And you sent him out with a bunch of guys even less experienced, into a war zone that even a hardened veteran would balk at. And then you wonder why none of them came back. What do you people use for common sense?"
"We need those generator parts, Ravensmith," Durham said. "We've got a fuel reserve, and we've got the basic motors. But without those parts we'll never get them working."
"He's right, Eric," Dr. Dreiser said. "I could sure use some electricity at the hospital. We salvaged all kinds of equipment from the campus infirmary, but we can't use them. Not without those generators."
"And we could set some lights up at night to guard the perimeter," Dr. Epson said.
Eric leaned back in his chair, rocking it back on two legs. "I know how important it is. But I know that there's a safer way to go about getting what we want. I told you that before and it still goes. The only difference now is that we've lost four men."
"At least we tried," Durham growled.
"Wrong. They tried. You sat on your asses while they got theirs blown away. Now you're asking me to do the same thing."
"These are dangerous times, Eric," Toni Tyler said in her reasonable politician's voice. "We don't always have the luxury of optimum safety."
Eric smiled. "Especially when you don't have to go out yourself."
"It doesn't matter what you think about us," Dr. Epson said. "As I pointed out earlier, we aren't asking you. We're telling you. We took a vote and we agreed three against two, with Trevor here and the good doctor dissenting. We want you to meet them, give them the farming and technical books they want in exchange for whatever generator parts we need."
Eric stood up, turned his back, and marched toward the door. "Forget it."
"Where are you going?" Dr, Epson demanded, his voice squeaky with anger. "Answer me!" He pounded the table with his mallet. "Answer me or I'll have you and your family expelled from University Camp immediately."
"For God's sake, Donald," Trevor gasped.
"You will do no such thing," Dr. Dreiser said, stamping her sore foot on the floor.
Even Griff Durham was shocked by such a threat. "Shut up, Epson."
"I will not! I'm Chairperson of the Council. Elected by the population of University Camp. Eric is this community's Security Chief, appointed by this council, and as such it is his duty-"
Eric grabbed his crossbow and spun around to face them. "You people don't seem to understand the situation out there. We are a tiny fort in hostile territory surrounded by warring tribes. The only reason we survive is because those on the outside are at war with each other as well as with us. Councilperson, Security Chief." He sneered. "Those are bullshit terms from a polite way of life that doesn't exist anymore. You are a war council and I am your warlord. We are at war right this minute, with everyone outside this camp. And the sooner you accept that fact, the better our chance of surviving the week."
"We aren't at war, Eric," Toni Tyler said. "We're conducting peaceful transactions with another group. Like two countries doing business together. We're simply trading goods. It's simple economics, don't make more of it than it is."
"That's right, Ravensmith," Durham nodded. "We're just making do until we're all rescued."
Eric was incredulous. "Rescued?"
"Sure," Dr. Dreiser said. "How long could it be?"
Eric shook his head. "You people still don't understand, do you? Trevor, where are the leaflets?"
Trevor Graumann opened his charred briefcase and pulled out a handful of yellow leaflets. He tossed them in front of him where they landed with a thud.
"Does that include last week's?"
Trevor nodded.
Eric walked back across the room and picked up the top leaflet. "I'm going to assume you've all read these, though it's clear that you don't fully understand them. So I'm going to explain it slowly and bluntly. That way you can get a realistic view of our situation, and make decisions accordingly.
"First, forget about any help from the government. The most they can do right now is fly over, and I mean way over, and drop these goddamn bulletins once very two weeks." He swept his hands across the pile, scattering them along the table. Some fluttered off the edge. "Did you notice the careful drawings, the scientific explanations, the apologetic forecast? Boil it all down and it says one thing: Deep Shit. That's what we're in." He held up one of the flyers with a printed map. "See this map? This is what the United States looked like before the quakes. This was us. California. Now look at the map next to it. This is what the United States looks like now. But wait a minute. Where's California?" He stabbed the paper with his finger. The sound echoed like a shot in the quiet room. "Here we are. Five miles to the west. What's all this space between us and them? Water. Cold, blue ocean."
Durham bristled. "We aren't children, Ravensmith. We understand all that. Part of the mainland broke off, from San Francisco to the Gulf of California. We've all seen the satellite photos and drawings they dropped. Scientists have been predicting the possibility for years. You don't see any of us sitting around crying over it, do you?"
"No, not crying. Just burying your heads." He pointed at the door. "Why do you think the sky's always that orange-yellow color during the day, and that dim gray-pink at night?"
"We know all about the Long Beach Halo, Eric," Toni Tyler said, tapping her pencil on the table. "But according to these government flyers, it's probably just a temporary situation."
"Depends on your definition of temporary. They explain it very clearly, don't they? An inversion layer, a dome of chemical gases formed when the quakes damaged the containers of chemical weapons we had stored at Long Beach harbor. Somehow the weather conditions caused by the quake combined with the escaping chemical gases and formed this damn umbrella sealing the whole damned island in, from San Francisco to the tip of Baja. A super acid fog. We can't get out, the outside world can't get in. In fact, we're warned right here in this flyer-notice the big red print-not to attempt to leave the island by boat. It seems that those who tried and passed through the Halo became diseased and contagious.
Suggest anything to you?"
Dr. Dreiser sighed. "Biological weapons."
"Bullseye, Doc. It wasn't just chemical weapons that were stored in Long Beach, but biological ones too. And now they're mixed into that lovely little cloud."
"Impossible!" Dr. Epson shouted. "They would have told us."
"Really?" Eric said, flinging the flyer back onto the table. "Not when our government has proclaimed to the world we'd gotten rid of them years ago. How do you think the rest of the country, never mind the world, will react when they realize there are probably other storehouses just like Long Beach's? Nope. They'll stick to their story. Only problem is, they can't get in here without being contaminated, and we can't get out. How do they word it? 'Anybody attempting to pass through the phenomenon risks contaminating the outside world and will be dealt with severely.' For those who can't interpret military jargon, that means-"
"Kill on sight," Durham said quietly.
"Exactly."
Toni Tyler tapped her pencil nervously. "But they also say it's just a temporary phenomenon. That it'll probably dissipate on its own."
"Possibly. But it's been intact for three months without any signs of dissipating. We can't count on that happening, at least not in the near future. We have to start thinking about here and now. Thinking like survivors."
Dr, Epson jumped to his feet. "Submarines! They could dive under the water, avoid the Halo altogether."
"Yeah," Durham said. "What about that? Subs."
"Maybe," Eric said. But their estimates put the dead here at between ten and fifteen million, which leaves about five to ten million people to track down, transport across land, then ship to the mainland. How many subs do you think it would take to transport five million people?"
"It would take ten years," Trevor said. "And that assumes they want to bring us back."
"What do you mean?" Toni asked.
"Well, if Eric is correct in his evaluation of the situation, and I think we can agree that he probably is, then they're not going to be anxious to take the chance of bringing us back."
Toni shook her head. "Why?"
"Because," Durham said, "they can't be sure whether or not we're already contaminated, just from living under that fucking-excuse me, ladies-Long Beach Halo."
"But we aren't sick or anything," Dr. Epson said. "I feel exceptionally robust. Doctor?"
Dr. Dreiser lifted her swollen ankle back onto the chair. "It's possible we've absorbed whatever's up there at such a moderate rate that our bodies have built up an immunity. But we could still be carriers to those outside. Like anthropologists who would discover some lost tribe and end up wiping them out simply by passing along a cold germ. The anthropologists, like most of civilization, had developed immunities. But the tribe, never before exposed, found the germ fatal. It's possible."
Eric watched as each fell into a long, profound silence, staring at their hands, the wall, thinking. He hadn't wanted to shatter what little hope of rescue they'd been clinging to all these months, but it was time for them to take their present situation seriously. To start thinking of it as permanent, which it probably was. He didn't like it any better than they did, though he'd had longer to get used to the idea. Every once in a while the sense of loss was overpowering, and some past image would rush into his mind, dance tantalizingly out of reach, and make him sad. Last week it had been an image of Time magazine, which he used to like to lie in the bathtub and read. No more Time. Yesterday he'd thought about Raiders of the Lost Ark and felt sad because he'd been looking forward to taking the kids to the sequel. Now there wouldn't be a sequel. At least for them. Right now he thought about his old neighbor, Gary Thompson, the dentist who begged to cut Eric's lawn. They rarely spoke, except about the lawn, the weather, the Lakers. Now Eric missed him.
"Okay, back to the matter at hand," Eric said brusquely.
Everyone looked at him with a slightly dazed expression.
"The generator parts. El Dorado Center's offer."
Toni Tyler shifted her hefty bulk in the chair. "It seems to me that if we accept your evaluation, Eric, we are even more in need of those parts. Our generators will be crucial to our survival."
"She's right," Durham said grudgingly, not liking to agree with a woman, even a fellow Republican. "We'll have to deal with them."
Eric sat down again. "Maybe. But let's examine the facts a little first."
This time no one argued.
"How did their offer arrive?"
"Tossed over the fence an hour ago," Dr. Epson said, pushing a wrinkled piece of paper across the table with the head of his mallet. "It was tied to a rock. A couple of kids were smooching near the south perimeter behind the cafeteria. They found it."
Eric read the brief note quickly. "I see they mention generator parts specifically."
"So?" Durham asked.
"How did they know we needed generator parts?"
Durham shrugged. "Maybe because we haven't used any electricity since we've been here. If we had working generators we'd have used them, right?"
"Sounds reasonable."
"But?"
"But there's another possibility."
"Like what?"
Eric's reddish-brown eyes flashed. "They were told."
"By whom?" Dr. Epson asked.
"Matt Southern. One of the others with him."
"For God''s sake," Durham said. "Why would they?"
"Because they were forced to. Tortured, maybe. Knowing your enemies' weaknesses is the first step in defeating them."
"There he goes again!" Dr. Epson said. "He thinks everyone out there is out to get us."
"It's a safe assumption," Eric said.
"But it's so cold and inhuman, Eric," Dr. Dreiser said. "Maybe they're just a group of people like us, trying to make contact, trying to survive. They're probably as afraid as we are. But they took the first step. Don't we owe it to them-to ourselves-to follow up?"
"Not to the mention the generator parts," Durham reminded everybody.
"It's a big risk," Eric said. "It could be a trick."
"What's the big risk?" Dr. Epson asked. "A few boxes of library books, that's all."
"Not to mention my life and the people I'm taking with me out there."
Dr. Epson looked down. "Well, I didn't mean…" His voice trailed off.
"We understand the risks, Eric," Toni Tyler said.
"Do you? Did you read this note? They want us to meet them at the Bank of America building down the street at midnight. Midnight, for Chrissakes. They must be watching old Thin Man movies in that video shop. Why not do it in the daytime? It's not like we're breaking any laws."
"They mention that in the note," Dr. Epson said.
"They're afraid we might try to jump them, steal the parts."
"Sure," Eric said, standing up. "And maybe they're right. Hell, maybe they are just trying to protect themselves. But chances are it's a setup. And it's just not worth the risk. I won't ask anybody to go out into the Dead Zone on something as lame as this. We're better off continuing to send out scouting patrols on our own, trying to find the parts we need."
"But you've scoured the nearby area and haven't found anything yet," Durham said.
"Lots of people want that kind of stuff. We'll just have to go farther away."
"What about that risk?"
"There's such a thing as acceptable risk, Durham. And at least then we'll know what we're walking into. Good evening."
Eric walked out of the room, snagging his bow and quiver on the way out.
Philip Marcus was sitting on a counter near the cash register, looking out the front door, when he saw Eric winding around the piles of books and displays of Bic pens. "How'd it go in there?" he asked.
Eric smiled at him as he sailed by. "Fine. Just fine."
But Philip had seen that smile. He hopped off the counter and picked up his bow. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
13.
"Close your eyes."
Eric hesitated. "
What?"
"Close your eyes. We have a surprise for you." Annie pressed her fingertips against Eric's eyes to make sure they were closed. "Timmy, bring it over."
Eric heard movement, something being set on the desk in front of him, Timmy's familiar giggling. He smiled. Annie's cool fingers felt so good he was in no hurry for the surprise.
"Okay, give us your finger," Annie said. "And keep your eyes closed. Or else."
Eric felt her lifting his right hand. Timmy's tiny hands were tugging at Eric's index finger. "If you're planning on sticking my finger in an electrical socket, forget it. We won't have electricity for a couple more weeks."
"Have faith, Dad," Timmy said. "Did I ever trick you once in my whole life?"
"You were the one who wanted me to do the high dive that day I lost my trunks."
"I didn't know they'd come off. I was just a kid then."
Eric laughed. "Then?"
"Yeah. In a couple months I'll be thirteen. A teenager."
"Enough, enough," Annie said. "Let's continue with the surprise. It's getting late and I don't want to use up all our candles."
Eric's finger was guided through the air. He had to take a step forward to keep up with it. Finally it was lowered toward the desk and placed on a flat, plastic ridge. "Okay, v can I open my eyes now?"
"Nope," Annie said. "First you have to press down with your finger. Hard."
"Now?"
"Yes, now."
Eric pressed the plastic ridge and it clicked down. A switch of some kind. A slight hiss and whirl. "Now what? Is it supposed to-"
"It was twenty years ago today/Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play/They been going in and out of style…"
Eric opened his eyes and stared at the battered Panasonic tape recorder. "Christ, it's the Beatles. Where did you get this?" He turned the volume up slightly. The sound was scratchy but strong.
Annie cupped her hands around her mouth and pretended to shout. "A bit hard to explain over the noise, guv."
Eric laughed, turned the volume down.
"These kids and their rock 'n' roll," Annie winked at Timmy, shaking her head.