Slow Apocalypse

by John Varley

  Marcus sat in a chair and he lifted the mattress, propped it up, and opened a recessed compartment. Dave could see metal gleaming.

  “What you into? Handguns? Rifles, shotguns?”

  “I want a good revolver—medium-sized, not a cannon—and a shotgun.”

  Marcus tried to sell him a rifle with a spotter scope but Dave held firm, and ended up with two Smith & Wesson .38 model 19s with four-inch barrels and an old but well-preserved Remington 870 Express 12-gauge.

  He was about to call it quits when he spotted something else.

  “How much for that one?”

  “The Ithaca side by side?” Marcus gave him a price that Dave suspected was double what the gun was worth, and Dave took it. He thought he could cut it down into something Addison could handle. A double-barreled shotgun didn’t take much aiming.

  Actually, he hoped Daddy could take care of any necessary ugly business before his little Addison had to shoot at all, but you could never be sure.

  Dave stowed the hardware in a place he was sure even his nosy daughter didn’t know about. Then he went back to the main house and found Addison still hard at work on her computer.

  “Mom called,” she said.

  “Yeah? What did she have to say?”

  “Just that she would be back tomorrow, but she had to take a later flight. I wrote down the flight number.” She handed him a Post-it, then smiled up at him with wide, innocent eyes. “I didn’t tell her about the guy in the black van you spent so much time with. Or about the things wrapped in blankets you brought into the house. I presume they were golf clubs?”

  “Golf clubs are lethal weapons if you know how to handle them. Did anyone ever tell you it’s not polite to snoop?”

  Her smile just got broader. “Politeness is highly overrated. And besides, I may snoop, but it’s not sneaky if I tell you I did it, is it?”

  “I’ll have to think on that one. Addie, I’m going out for a while, there are a few things I need to do.”

  “Can I borrow your credit card?”

  “What for?”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t gamble all your money away at a Honduran Web site or subscribe to a lot of porn sites. I found some books that we can get FedExed that I thought might come in handy.” She had printed out a list, and she handed it to him.

  It all looked like useful stuff, from how-to books to survival manuals to something called The Anarchist Cookbook, which taught you how to make bombs from common household chemicals. As he looked over the list, he was struck by just how little most people know about so many basic things, things our pioneer forefathers probably did routinely. How do you dress out a rabbit, or a deer? Clean a fish? How do you make cloth, or soap? What wild mushrooms and berries are edible? Who knew if they would need any of this stuff, but he agreed it was best to have it on hand. At some point they might not be able to Google it up.

  “Okay,” he said, “but anything you win in Honduras, I get half.”

  On his way out, Dave stopped and studied his house in a way he had never done before. Every man’s home is his castle, they say. It had always been a figure of speech, but how did this house stack up, as a literal, defensible castle?

  There was no moat or drawbridge, but other than that, it was a lot better than most American homes. The architect had never considered that anyone might have to defend himself inside but had taken something else into consideration: the penchant of Hollywood hill dwellers for privacy. Many houses were built on tiny lots that were the next thing to vertical. Most people built right up to the curb on the street side, with only a door and a driveway entrance.

  On the street side of his house there were just two windows on the second floor, and they were narrow. What you saw from the street was that bit of second floor looking over an unbroken eight-foot wall of thick, stucco-covered brick, painted white, broken only by a solid metal electric gate. The street door was right next to the driveway gate and was just as sturdy. His wall joined his neighbors’ walls on both the east and the west. The east side of the house had no windows on the ground floor, and just two more on the second, which looked out over his neighbor’s sprawling ranch-style house, patio, and pool. The stucco wall continued on the west side of the property and down the hillside for about fifty feet, to the edge of the property on the next street down. The south side of his property was pretty much wide open, but if he were a Goth, Hun, or Vandal he’d think twice about storming the castle from that side. A six-foot retaining wall kept his patio and pool from sliding down the hillside, and at the bottom of the wall it was a slope of forty-five degrees, held in place by thickets of ice plant. There was no path to the bottom.

  He wouldn’t want to approach the house from that direction if he were intent on doing the residents harm. The entire time they had lived there no one had ever ventured down except gardeners, and they didn’t go very often. At one time there had been more substantial plantings on that slope, shrubs and a few small trees, but he had had them all removed one summer when there was a big fire scare. Now there was nothing growing anywhere near the house, as the LAFD advised. The flat roof was concrete, with a small array of electricity-generating solar panels, and surrounded by a low parapet trimmed with red ceramic barrel tiles.

  He decided that the east boundary was the most vulnerable side. The slope was not quite as steep, and the ground cover not as thick. But someone in one of those two upper windows with a shotgun could make it very uncomfortable for anyone coming up the street from that direction, and once an invader got to the top, he wouldn’t have achieved much. There was a narrow gap between the north wall of the house and the street wall, and Dave would be filling that in if things got nasty.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  He couldn’t put his finger on it, but when he got down out of the hills things felt a little different. It was a hot day, so maybe that accounted for some of it, but it seemed to him that a lot of people were driving more aggressively, less politely, than usual. On the other hand, traffic was fairly light. He made his way across town easily, but he did notice that the parking lots of all the grocery stores were at capacity and beyond. There were lines of cars in the street, waiting to get inside.

  The gun shop he visited was crowded, and some of the patrons were angry. A guy behind the glass counter was raising his voice.

  “No guns today!” he shouted. “Everything you see has a red tag on it, which means it’s been sold, and the owner is waiting for the background check. I’m expecting a shipment in two days, handguns, rifles, and shotguns, but I’m not taking orders. Come back later and see what we have. Meantime, all I have is ammunition.”

  There was some grumbling, but most of the people left, though others kept arriving to replace them. An assistant was writing a notice on a piece of cardboard to tape to the front door. Dave moved up to the counter and told the man what he needed. He started pulling boxes from the shelves behind him.

  “Has long has it been like this?”

  “About a week.” The man shrugged. “Same thing happened right after 9/11, though it wasn’t this bad. It was real bad after the Rodney King riots. Every now and then something happens, gets folks scared. Like a Democrat getting elected to the White House. That’s always good for business. If I could legally sell machine guns and bazookas, I’d make a fortune.”

  He wouldn’t sell Dave as many 12-gauge shotgun shells as Dave asked for, but he felt lucky to get what he had. He bought several boxes of .357 cartridges after the guy told him they were the same caliber as regular .38 ammunition but packed a lot more punch. He paid for it all with a credit card.

  He had to buy a canvas bag to put it all in. All that lead was amazingly heavy.

  He went to the bank and withdrew his limit on all of his cards, and closed his account. He had a thick stack of twenties and hundreds when he was done. What would it buy in a week? A month? A year? Even if the worst fears didn’t come true, it seemed certain the country was headed for very bad economic times. Buy gold? Last time he chec
ked it was very expensive, and going up as people grew more worried. He was no economist; he didn’t know which way to jump. Best to lay in real wealth in the form of food and fuel, and then see how things developed.

  He stopped at the Home Depot on Sunset and Western and loaded up on the cheapest grade of quarter-inch plywood they had. It wouldn’t stop a bullet but it would slow down an intruder scaling his castle walls. While he was there he realized that many of his tools were electric. He bought an old-fashioned hand drill and an assortment of saws, then picked up a small gas chain saw and a wood splitter.

  When he got home there was a big flatbed truck backed up in his driveway. He screeched to a halt and hurried to the open gate. When he got through he saw two large fellows unloading bales of hay.

  “What the hell…?”

  Addison was standing by the garage, looking nervous but determined.

  “Addison, did you—”

  “Yes, Dad, I did. I…” She stopped, and glanced at the workmen, then came to him and pulled him by the arm. She stopped at the edge of the retaining wall, well away from any listening ears. She spoke softly.

  “If we’re not going to have any gas,” she said, “well, we’re not going to get over to Burbank every day to take care of Ranger. I’d worry about him. And besides, a horse is a good way to get around.”

  “This is what the credit card was about.”

  “Yes, plus the books and other stuff. I’m sorry, Dad, I know I shouldn’t have tricked you…but you can see we can do it. We have two spare stalls in the garage, and I’ll clean up after him, and the hay and grain is pretty cheap, really.”

  He followed me home, Daddy. Can I keep him?

  He sighed. “I guess we better move him today. Do you know if we can rent a trailer at the equestrian center?”

  “We could, but I have a better idea.”

  Addison had her arms wrapped around her father as he cautiously descended the hill to Sunset. It had been a while since he had driven a motorcycle, and the scooter was a lot smaller and less powerful. He didn’t entirely trust the brakes, so he kept it very slow.

  Actually, he didn’t entirely trust their ability to get the horse from Burbank to the Hollywood Hills safely, but he figured they’d better start getting used to doing things in a different way. He made it to Sunset without incident, then east to Cahuenga and along the 101 freeway, past the Hollywood Bowl, and up and over Cahuenga Pass. Soon they were in Burbank and he swung the scooter through the entrance to the Equestrian Center and on to the building that housed Ranger’s stall. Addison hopped off and ran to her horse, who seemed glad to see her.

  They filled a canvas bag and the small pannier on the scooter with what gear they could carry, tack and brushes and a pair of riding boots. Addison saddled the beast.

  Ranger handled the traffic like a pro, as if he did this every day. There were a few people who honked their horns, even though horse and rider were not blocking anything on the wide streets, but most drivers seemed delighted at the sight of the girl on the horse. They got lots of smiles and thumbs-ups.

  He stayed behind them as they crossed the freeway and Ranger ambled down Ventura Boulevard. Then they crossed over and began to climb. The streets up there were narrower, and winding. In most places there wasn’t room for two cars to pass. He got ahead of Addison and putt-putted in front of them to each curve and waited there.

  It is a complicated and winding route up from the Valley, across the hills and valleys and down to the house on Mockingbird. It took them half an hour to reach Mulholland Drive. Addison dismounted. Dave turned off the scooter’s engine, and they both walked for a while. There was quite a bit of forage up there, though you had to be careful not to let the horse eat somebody’s valuable plantings.

  They reached Sunset Plaza, and before long they could look down the hill and see the house. A pitcher with a good arm could have landed a baseball on their roof. It looked as if they were almost home, but it was an illusion. They had to descend Sunset Plaza almost all the way to Sunset Boulevard itself before going up Rising Glen, down Thrasher, and finally up Doheny and into their neighborhood, a total of three and a half miles. Walking or riding a horse gave you a whole new perspective on distances.

  At last they arrived at the house and Addison took the horse into the empty garage stall. Dave helped her move a bale of wood shavings into the stall, which they spread across the concrete floor, and she got out a bale of hay and gave Ranger about half of it. He moved a few items to form a crude barrier between the horse and Karen’s Mercedes, then found a tub and filled it with water. He tried to imagine the scene when Karen arrived home the next evening to find that part of their garage had been converted into a stable.

  Dave and Karen didn’t speak much when he picked her up at the airport. That had become the new norm in their relationship.

  When they got home Dave kept trying to start a conversation about the current political and social situation, the uncertainty everyone was feeling, but it was hard to get her interested in current events. She might very well go to work for a group whose purpose was to obtain extra gas allotments for poor people who were unable to get to their jobs, but she seemed oblivious to the fact that rationing was going to make big changes in her life, too.

  As they were finishing their dinner there was a loud neighing sound from outside. Karen frowned, and started to get up.

  “That’s Ranger,” Dave said. Karen stopped, and sat back down.

  “And what is Ranger doing here?” she asked.

  “Well, it’s a long story, and sort of complicated, and not all that easy to believe,” he admitted.

  She gave him a long, hard stare.

  “You probably think I haven’t noticed some strange goings-on around here,” she said, evenly. “Well, whatever it is you’re trying to hide from me, I guess now’s the time to get it all out.”

  “I wasn’t hiding it, exactly. Well…maybe I was. I was hoping for a better time to tell it all to you. Because, I admit, it’s a lot to swallow.”

  She rested her chin on her fist and gave him a flat stare.

  “Please do go on,” she said.

  Her eyes were hard as nails, and he had the sinking feeling that he was doomed before he even started. But she was right, it was time to get it all out in the open.

  “It begins with Colonel Warner,” he said, and talked nonstop for half an hour.

  It might not have been the best pitch he ever gave, but it was the most heartfelt, and the audience was tough. Karen’s expression never changed throughout the story. She said nothing for a long time. Addison kept looking back and forth between her parents. When Karen spoke there was no hint of emotion in her voice.

  “And what do you propose to do about this?” she asked.

  That was not what he had expected, and he hoped it was a good sign.

  “Well, I’ve stocked up on gasoline and a lot of other essentials, in case food might be hard to get for a while. How long do you think the food in markets and warehouses will last if the trucks and trains don’t keep rolling, bringing it all in from all around the country?”

  “I’m sure I have no idea.”

  “Well, I don’t have an exact time, either, but I suspect it would be only a few weeks. Maybe less.”

  “Again, what do you propose to do about it?”

  He took a deep breath. He hadn’t told Addison about this, nor anyone else.

  “I originally thought we’d hunker down, sit it out right here. We could last for months with what I’ve put away. But if people are getting hungry, if people are starving, as I suspect they soon will be, then we would have to defend it all. So I think the best idea is to get out of here while we can. Los Angeles will soon become untenable.”

  “Get out of here,” she said, in the same quiet voice. “And go where?”

  “What we need is a place with fertile land, adequate rainfall, and hydropower. And that means, to me, the Pacific Northwest. Oregon and Washington, Idaho. British Columbia,
if they would take American refugees.”

  “Refugees.” Her expression still hadn’t changed. “You really think Americans are going to become refugees.”

  “I was thinking, we could go visit your brother. Martin has a big house, most of their children moved out. We could stay with him until we got settled.”

  He was suddenly feeling very tired. He had said all he had to say until he heard something from her. Which wasn’t long in coming. She stood up, calm as could be.

  “I can’t begin to imagine why you have manufactured this silly story,” she said. “I think you may have cracked under the pressure of not finding work. I don’t want to think there’s a more sinister motive. I might be able to shrug it off, take it as a bad joke, but you seem to have infected our daughter with your paranoid fantasy, and I can’t forgive you for that. I’m moving out, right now, and I’m taking Addison with me. Come with me, Addison, and we’ll pack.”

  Addison glanced at him. He didn’t move. This was up to her. She folded her hands and looked at her mother.

  “I’m staying here,” she said.

  “Addison, I’m not telling you again. Get out of that chair and come with me.”

  “No, Mom.” There was a catch in her voice, but she held her mother’s eyes.

  Karen’s eyes were cold.

  “I see,” she said. “I can’t physically force you to come with me, but both of you should know that my lawyer will have something to say about all this. He’ll be contacting you tomorrow. I can’t wait to hear you tell your little story in court. Which is where I’ll see you next.” She turned and stalked out of the room. Dave could hear her going up the stairs. He looked at Addison.

  “Well,” she said. “That went nicely, don’t you think?”

  Karen came back down carrying a suitcase. Dave followed her to the door.

  “Karen, don’t do this.”

  “Get out of my way.”

  He closed the door behind her. He felt numb, and more than a little shaky. It felt like one part of his life was over and another was beginning, and he wasn’t ready for it. He had known for some time, even before the crisis, that this day would come, in one way or another. He still loved her, or maybe he still loved the woman he thought was somewhere inside this hard, detached Karen who had replaced the woman he married, but he doubted that she loved him any longer, not even deep down.