American Apocalypse Wastelands

by Nova

  Zit finished it for her. “We’ve all heard stories about you, and we were there at the house, but—you get rolling and everyone dies.” He sounded amazed, awed. But I heard something else, too. Disgust? Admiration?

  Once we hit the main road and started making time, it was too difficult to talk. We dropped Ninja and the other guy at Donna’s. She was going to need a bigger house at this rate. Diesel and the rest of the squad were dropped by the town hall, leaving Max and me to ride back together.

  He barely had the door closed and the truck in gear, when I asked, “What’s the problem, Max?”

  “The problem is this is your second op. This is also the second one you have screwed up.”

  “Wait a minute. What screwup? All the bad people are dead. Ninja is going to live.”

  He stopped the truck hard and slammed it into Park. “Look at me. Look me right in the eye and tell me you think that went well!”

  I didn’t answer. He put the truck back in gear and started driving. Neither one of us said anything for a few minutes.

  “Look, G. I don’t doubt your courage,” he said, finally. “The squad we left back there, they are going to make you a legend. They will also follow you wherever you tell them to go. The question is, can you lead them? You’re a fucking cowboy, not an infantry officer.”

  That cut deep, really deep. What made it really hurt was the possibility that Max was right.

  Night was waiting for me. She was sitting on the trailer steps, her head propped up on one hand as she stared out into the darkness of the yard. I stood there, looking at her. Without turning to look at me she said, “The fireflies are gone.”

  “I know. It’s getting too cold, I think.”

  She turned and regarded me solemnly for a couple seconds. Then a big grin split her face and she jumped into my arms. “Oh God! I am so glad you are back!” Then she suddenly pulled away, still holding on to me, her eyes wide: “Where’s Ninja?”

  “He got hurt, Night.” I added hastily, “But he is going to be okay. He took a round through his arm. Donna says he’ll be fine. He just needs to rest.”

  She pulled me close again. “Damn! You two scare the hell out of me sometimes.”

  An hour later we lay side by side in bed. I was tired, but there was something I wanted to know before I went to sleep. “Night, why did Max wait so long to send out the team? Why did he send them at all?”

  “Because I told him if he didn’t, and you and Ninja died, I was going back to the clan.”

  “Why? And when did you tell him?” I had propped myself up on one elbow and was looking at her. My mind was screaming at me, Let it go, doofus; let the woman sleep. But I couldn’t.

  Her eyes popped open and she took a deep breath. Her voice, when she spoke, was a whisper. “I told him two hours after you left.”

  “Oh.” I paused to digest this. “Did something happen? What took so long for the squad to assemble and move?”

  She moved her head just enough to make eye contact. “I’m not sure. I’m not sure I even want to be sure. I know what I heard in my head.”

  I had the feeling I was not going to like what I was going to hear, but I had to ask. “What was that?”

  “He who would be King can tolerate no rivals.”

  I looked at her for a couple seconds. Then I put my head down on my pillow and rolled over. Sleep did not come easily that night.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The next day I went into town. I found Diesel and told him to let the squad know they had a three-day leave. Then I went back to the station. I was looking for Max and found him sitting at his desk talking to the two patrol officers who were now working the morning shift. I sat on the edge of my desk, which Night was using in addition to hers. Gunny was in the back; we waved to each other.

  I listened to Max tell the patrolmen what he thought they needed to know. “Now I don’t want you two slacking off and sitting on your asses in the diner or parked under a tree. Make a visible tour through the campgrounds. That means get out and walk and talk to people. I want to know where everyone is coming from and where they think they are going. That’s it.”

  They nodded politely to me as they passed by.

  One of them stopped long enough to fist-bump me. He grinned and said, “Stone cold, Gardener, stone cold.” Then he was out the door. I looked at Max, waited until the guy cleared the door, and laughed.

  Max grinned at me, “We cool?”

  “Yeah, but I want to talk.”

  He paused. “Private talk?”

  “No, Gunny can listen if he wants. We have anyone in the cell block?”

  Gunny got up and shut the door leading to the back. “Better?”

  “Better. Thanks, Gunny.”

  “It’s like this, Max. I’ve been thinking about what you said last night. I’m not an officer type. I am not even an army type. Not only that, I don’t want to be. You called me a cowboy. Well, I am. This world of plastic guns, night-vision goggles, thermal sights, and what have you—I don’t understand it and I don’t really want to. I do understand killing a man and doing it so he can see me. I understand that breaking the law is something that can’t be tolerated. That the strong should not oppress the weak. That ‘to protect and serve’ means just what it says.

  “I don’t like all that black plastic, Darth Vader shit for a reason. It’s just another part of the fucked-up system that got us living here. Expensive killing toys for people who don’t want to look someone in the eye and recognize him as another man. They are banker weapons. They are ‘suck the money out of the poor’ weapons. It stinks of corruption, evil, and destruction for the sake of greed.” I stopped.

  Max sighed. “You done?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You going to be lighting bonfires next?”

  “I hadn’t planned on it. Why? You hungry?”

  “Yeah, actually I am. Look, what do you want to do?”

  “Be a cop: Kick doors in, shoot bad guys—and maybe a few not so bad. You know, that kind of thing.”

  “Well, I don’t think we’re going to run out of bad guys anytime soon. You’re still the assistant chief of police. Order yourself back on patrol if you want.”

  I grinned. “I think I will have a meeting with myself and do that.”

  “Good. C’mon. I’m going over to the diner and having some pancakes. I’ll even buy you breakfast.”

  “Wow. I’m impressed, especially since I know Shelli lets you eat for free.”

  “Yeah, there is that.” We both laughed.

  “Max, I’ll meet you there. I need to give Gunny something.”

  He cocked his head as if he was waiting to hear what it was. Then he shrugged. “Sure, no problem.”

  I walked over to Gunny and set the BAR on his worktable. “I don’t think I am going to need this anymore. You want to check it back into the armory for me?”

  “Sure, G. No problem.”

  “Thanks.” I headed for the door to catch up with Max.

  Just as I put my hand on the knob I heard Gunny yell, “Hey, G!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t sweat it. Anyone in town who’s worth a damn knows that you’re the man when the shit hits the fan.”

  “You know what, Gunny?”

  “What?”

  “You just sounded like the lamest rapper I ever heard.” I could hear his laughter even after I shut the door.

  I caught up to Max at the door of the diner, and we headed for the back booth that Shelli somehow always knew to hold for him. We sat down after working the tables. That meant stopping and talking to people we knew—or, rather, mostly people Max knew—and eyeballing anyone we didn’t. Max was good at this. He exchanged insults with some and chitchat with others. I heard him ask one woman, “Did you get any tomatoes to grow?”

  The answer was a sorrowful “No, damn blight is still at it.”

  Business was good at Shelli’s, and it got better at night when she served her “wine.” She was talking about
opening another place to handle the nighttime traffic. She was calling it a dance hall. It was going to feature local bands and serve drinks. Miss Edna saw it as a tax generator. I saw it as a busy night shift.

  Max and I talked about it while we waited for breakfast. “I got mixed feelings about it. They get that fortified brew flowing, and get young men and women together, and we are going to have trouble.”

  “Yeah, well, isn’t that what we were hired to take care of, Max? It can’t be much different from what we ran across before.”

  “I’m not worried about us. I am worried about the people who normally wouldn’t cuss in public, worried about them getting loaded and shooting their best friend.”

  “Why does Shelli want it so bad? Other than the obvious answer?”

  “Not much past that really. It would bring needed money into town. Create a few more jobs. Put some life into the place. I told her that if she does it, she’ll have to pay for security inside and out. More shit starts in the parking lot of places like that than you could imagine.”

  “Put it further out. Use the old RV place. Keep it out of town but near enough to keep an eye on. Maybe run a small pub in town for locals and have it close earlier.”

  “Yeah, Night suggested the same thing, except she wants all the bartenders to be working for us.”

  “I know, Max. She wants us to buy in, become partowners.”

  He grinned. “Might as well. It’s not like anyone is offering a retirement plan that is worth anything these days. Plus, someday you are going to have to be buying new shoes and gun belts for little gunfighters.”

  “Ah, let’s not get carried away, Max.”

  He just laughed. “You got the tip.”

  After breakfast, which was very good, and before he went back to the station house, Max told me what else was new.

  “I got a spotter sitting on the road with our best walkie-talkie. She is going to holler if she sees anything coming up the road from the county seat. We got the old civil defense siren hooked up. If you hear it go off, head for the park by the town hall. Of course, there is the problem that we can never be sure the electricity will be on to run the siren. What we need is a bell. Anyway, that’s the rally point.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know. We got to figure out some signals and a plan. Never enough time, G, there is just never enough time. Since you’re back I am going to give you some of this to work on.”

  “Sure. It’s better than digging holes.”

  I decided to walk around town. I felt pretty good as I stood there in front of the diner. I tasted pancakes again with a burp a teenage boy would be proud of. Outside of the weight, the body armor was welcome on a morning like this.

  After walking the town I planned to pick up Night. I figured we could ride over, see Ninja, and then maybe, just maybe, get some early quality time back home.

  Max had mentioned the need for helmets. Sitting behind that quartz outcropping while it got chipped away had made me realize that they made sense. I just didn’t want to wear one. I suppose if I had lost the tip of my nose, or had gotten a chunk of quartz embedded in my face, I would feel differently about them. I knew eventually I would be wearing one. But eventually was far enough away from today that I wasn’t going to sweat it.

  The town had changed. I could feel it. More energy was flowing. People were out and about. They were happier. I decided to head over to the north tollbooth first. I walked down Main Street to the far end of town, going slowly, just taking in the scene.

  I was even passed by several cars headed for somewhere other than here. I could tell because they just stared at me. They were probably pissed at paying the toll.

  The tollbooth was a small wooden shack. There was a steel post in front of it designed to slow down anyone who might want to avoid the toll by driving through—or over the toll collector. It was a two-person operation. One person took the toll based on vehicle type; the other watched, in case there was a problem, and inspected the vehicle. We didn’t want any Trojan horses rolling into town. Plus, Night thought it was a great way to get a read on the world based on what kind of people were moving around.

  The tollbooth had a CB radio. We had standardized on CB radios for almost everything. We used twelve-volt car batteries to power them. The problem was finding enough solar-powered chargers. Each tollbooth had one charger plus three batteries: one to charge, one to run on, and one for backup.

  We kept all the radios on the same channel, and Gunny monitored communications back at the station. Gunny was now our armorer, dispatcher, and desk sergeant. He wanted a raise, too.

  The guys manning the tollbooth saw me coming. They had been sitting in the shade talking until they spotted me. I saw the watcher say something to his buddy. By the time I got up to them they were trying to look busy.

  “Hey, guys. What’s up?”

  “Hey, Gardener. Not much.” This was from the toll collector. Both of them were militia, which meant they were over forty years old but had prior service.

  I waved the watcher over. “Come in out of the sun.”

  He had to be three hundred pounds, which was getting to be unusual around here. None of it looked like muscle either. The tollbooth roof extended enough to provide shelter for them if it was raining and a little extra shade on a sunny day. He looked like he couldn’t handle more than ten minutes in the sun before all that fat would be talking to him. I didn’t want him keeling over just because I had shown up.

  “How’s traffic?”

  “Light. The middle of the week is usually slow. Tell him about the big excitement of the day, Junior.”

  The watcher, whose name I now knew, laughed. “You tell him, Bill. You tell stories better.”

  “Well, we had this couple in a BMW. You know, one of them high-dollar cars.”

  Junior interrupted. “It was beat up. I bet it had been seven or eight years since it could be called a high-dollar automobile.”

  “You going to tell the story or am I?”

  Junior held his palms up. “Sorry.” He looked at me. “He’s a bit touchy when he tells stories.”

  Just shut up, Junior. Anyway, they wanted to go through. Told me it wasn’t fair. Said there was no toll marked on the map. So we go back and forth. The guy says they are broke. Looked like he wanted to cry. Then the woman says, ‘If I show you my titties, will you let us through?’ I told her, ‘It depends.’ So she pulls up her shirt and shows us these saggy titties. Junior here looks at them and laughs. He says, ‘You call them titties?’ Then he shrugs off his vest, pulls up his T-shirt, and shows them his.”

  “They are pretty nice,” Junior said. “Want to see?”

  “No. So then what happened?”

  Bill and Junior started laughing. “We told him that her titties didn’t qualify for the special discount!”

  They were laughing their asses off now. I chuckled a bit myself.

  “And then what?”

  “The woman started screaming shit at us as her husband put it into reverse.”

  “You know, guys, that is pretty funny. How many times have you let people slide for a tit shot?”

  Bill said, “None,” at the same time that Junior said, “Three.”

  I watched as Bill shot a glare at Junior, who hung his head contritely. I just stared at Bill. He tried to match me and then decided to look away after five seconds or so.

  “So, G, I guess this isn’t the best time to congratulate you on killing the sheriff and a hundred or so deputies.”

  “No, it’s not, Bill. And don’t call me ‘G.’ Only my friends call me that. I don’t consider you or Tits here my friends.” I paused. “In fact, I am wondering what else you need to confess. You know, get off your chest.”

  “Nothing else, I swear! Isn’t that right, Junior?”

  “Bill, if you say one more word, I am going to open your head like a melon. Do you understand me?”

  He nodded that he understood. His face was ashen.

 
I said, “Good. Now go stand over there and watch for BMWs.”

  I watched him go. I waited until he got about ten feet away before I said, “Junior . . . Junior, look at me.” I waited until he did. “It’s okay. I am not going to hurt you. I just want you to answer a few questions.”

  He looked at me. I had not realized it at first: He wasn’t country; he was slow. How the hell did he get into the military?

  “Are you going to hurt Bill?”

  “Only if he has been bad, Junior.”

  He thought about that and nodded his head. He understood that.

  “Did you and Bill let anyone go for free?” He tried looking over at Bill. “Junior, I want you to look at me when I talk to you.”

  “Mr. Gardener, we only let friends go. Does that count?”

  “Hmm . . . were they good friends?” I smiled at him. He keyed on the smile, just as I thought he would.

  “Yes! Bill has lots of friends.” He smiled. I smiled. We were in love.

  “Does Bill always collect the money?”

  “Yes.” Here he looked down. “I’m not so good with money. I mean we don’t have pictures on a machine to push.”

  “Yeah, that makes it harder. I hate that. You did good, Junior.” He looked up at me like he couldn’t believe it, like he was waiting for me to drop something nasty on him.

  “Really Junior. We’re cool.” I patted him on the shoulder. “Just stay here while I go talk to Bill. Oh, hand me the magazine on your weapon.”

  He did. I knew Bill saw it and was drawing conclusions about my conversation with Junior. I took the magazine and stuffed it my belt, making sure it didn’t get in the way of the Colt. Then I started walking toward Bill.

  Bill had put on his sunglasses so I couldn’t read his eyes. Instead I was going to have to read the angle of his M-16.

  “Bill, we need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  I kept walking. “About that woman. Did you find out who she was?”

  “What? What are you talking about?” I wanted him off-balance and thinking it was no big deal. “Gardener, you need to slow down.” I guess he had a guilty conscience.