by Eric Walters
“Do we look like we need your help to defend ourselves?” she asked. She turned to us. “You five, put the boat at the water’s edge and then get back inside the walls.”
We picked up the boat and carried it over to the lake, dropped it onto the sand, and followed orders as we trotted back to the opening. I stopped at the gate and watched as two men jumped into the rowboat and the other two pushed it into the shallows. They moved it into waist-deep waters and then they jumped in as well and started rowing. Their journey was followed by a single searchlight.
My mother led the men back to the opening. There were smiles on their faces and they were talking—not loudly, but you could hear the satisfaction in their voices. They went inside and my mother stopped beside me.
“You shouldn’t have come out here,” she said, quietly.
“I just wanted to know what was going on.”
“I would have told you.”
“I guess I just couldn’t wait. It wasn’t that dangerous.”
“That’s where you’re very wrong. It was dangerous to the entire community.”
“What?”
“Would a military operation, a Marine operation, need to have a young girl come out into the open like that?”
“I…I hadn’t thought of that.”
“We’re trying to survive on illusion, and we can’t afford to let that illusion be shattered.”
“I’m sorry. I just didn’t think about it.”
“Emma, I need better than that from you.”
I felt like I was about to cry.
My mother gave me a small smile. “It’s not fair, I know that. I shouldn’t be asking so much from you…and you’ve been so good…so brave, but I need more.”
I let out a big halting sigh, trying to drive back tears. I nodded my head. “I’m sorry, and I’ll try harder.”
“I know you will. For now we can only hope that those men were so dazed by the attack and blinded by the searchlights that they didn’t notice you or make sense of you being there.”
We turned around and watched as the rowboat got farther and farther away until it was barely visible. The searchlight stopped. Either we’d run out of power or they’d decided to turn it off.
“So, how did that all sound?” she asked. “Do you think they bought what we were selling?”
“I know the truth and you almost had me convinced and scared. You wouldn’t have really shot them, right?”
“I would have if they’d resisted, but we won’t be shooting surrendering prisoners with their hands up. Not on my watch. The problem is that prisoners are work to guard, take resources to feed, and we don’t want them inside to see this is all just smoke and mirrors.”
“Not all just smoke and mirrors,” I said. “We did sink that boat.”
“A lucky shot. Sending them back also sends a message to them and to others out there. We want the rumor to spread that we’re a fortified base filled with armed Marines. That we can sink ships at will, that we will shoot prisoners, that we’re ruthless.”
“Like that Division he mentioned?” I asked.
“They might be no different from us—some military people coming together to protect themselves and their families. They could be running the same sort of bluff that we are.”
“Maybe we should try to meet them.”
“At this time we can’t trust anybody enough to meet with them,” she said. “But if we do have a meeting, I know who we should meet with first.”
“Who?”
She smiled. “Curiosity will have to wait until the time is right.”
22
The sun was high in the sky, and it felt good as I lay on a towel on the beach. Around me others were taking in the sun or splashing in the water. There was a lifeguard posted to watch the swimmers. But behind us on the wall were the armed guards posted to watch us in a different way. Occasionally a boat would pass by out on the lake, but unless it came close we could just ignore it. About an hour before a boat had ventured too near and we’d been herded inside the walls until it was gone.
It was strange how it had all become so normal so quickly. Less than two weeks earlier I had been here at night when those prisoners swam to shore and were held at gunpoint. Then the day after that two bodies had washed up onto the beach. The day after that another appeared. I didn’t see any of them. They were taken and disposed of—buried on Main Island so that even the bodies didn’t invade our outpost.
Now, here, today, it was the middle of the summer, and the only bodies were those lying on towels catching rays. July was my favorite month. The world was bright and beautiful and warm and all seemed well. If it hadn’t been for the guards on the walls and the crossbow on the towel beside me, this would have been any beach on a sunny summer day before this all happened.
And we still didn’t really know what had happened, what had caused all the power to go out. It was a constant subject of conversation. Nobody seemed to know, and I guess in some ways it didn’t matter. For me, it wasn’t how it had happened that was important but what we were doing to survive it until it was all fixed again. Maybe that was me just being optimistic. Some people figured it would never get fixed again, that somehow everything had collapsed and it was what we “deserved” for thinking we were above nature. There was a pretty strong anti-progress, anti-technology group living out here, and in a strange way they almost seemed pleased about all of it.
I looked at my watch. I’d been here for over two hours. Willow had been with me for an hour before he’d headed back home. He had become a good friend. I liked spending time with him, and I felt like we could really talk about things. It was good to have a friend like that. Of course, it only made me feel worse about not sharing everything I knew with him.
Ethan was now always teasing me about my “boyfriend,” but Willow and I hadn’t done anything but hang out, and right now that was all I could handle. I needed a friend more than I needed a boyfriend. I couldn’t risk losing one to try to gain the other.
I sat up and looked around. In the shallows there were small children and their parents paddling around. Farther out were more serious swimmers. Ethan was out there with his friends. He was a good swimmer, and the island kids were even more serious swimmers. They all watched out for each other so there was nothing for me to be worried about. Still, worry was something I was good at.
Beyond the swimmers, farther out, were three boats with a dozen people fishing and another half dozen who acted as guards. The lake was our source of water, our protective moat, and a major source of food. There were always people out in boats or casting lines from the shore. Fish formed a big part of our diet, and with the exception of some goats and sheep that had been slaughtered, and the goat’s milk and the cheese and yogurt it made, fish was our major source of protein.
Across the water I could see our condo tower. Twenty-five stories almost lost among the taller buildings. We hadn’t been there long—we’d now lived on the islands longer—but it was still our home. It still had my bed and clothing and our things. Well, if there was anything left after all the looting. Part of me wanted to know. Another part just wanted to imagine it as it was.
The sun was high in the sky and I was getting really hot. I got up, picked up my towel and my crossbow, and was ready to go. I walked across the beach and went through the gate in the protective wall. I felt my body relax. I hadn’t realized that even lying in the sun, out there on the beach, I’d felt exposed. I was now safe. Okay, the illusion of safe.
Walking down the path, heading back to our home, I was surrounded by people doing different tasks. They were working hard to keep us alive and to keep the illusion of normal alive. When we were attacked or threatened it was all about the guards and the walls. The rest of the time it was about what was inside the walls, and the activities and people who were working for survival. All these people were caring for the crops, milking the goats, making cheese or candles, or keeping the solar panels clean and functioning to keep the electricity
flowing. There were teams for everything.
So far nobody seemed to be going without food. That was because of the stocks of canned and packaged goods that everybody seemed to have had in abundance, combined with the livestock and what was being farmed, fished, or foraged. Thank goodness for the petting zoo stock that had become so important to our survival.
Almost every day, foraging teams, accompanied by guards, set out to Main Island to look for food. Everything from pine needles to dandelions to assorted berries was edible. And of course there were apple and pear trees growing right in our community. For now there was enough for everybody, although the supply of coffee and sugar was reportedly running very low. Apparently sugar could be made from some plants that could be locally grown, but there was no coffee growing within a thousand miles. When our supply was gone it was gone.
A lot of what was happening was almost organic in nature; people just did things cooperatively and worked together. But Chris and some of the long-term residents had come together to form a committee. They were unelected but were well respected in the community. Most were older—they called themselves the “elders”—but some weren’t that old at all.
Technically the committee was in charge of everything, including security, but they basically left that to my mother to run. Without the other things they were all doing we couldn’t have survived. Without the security that my mother was in charge of we couldn’t have stayed alive to have those other things. That was a fact that was pretty well accepted by everybody. If we didn’t have a way to protect ourselves, somebody would sweep over this place and that would be the end of everything—and everybody.
I turned at the sound of metallic banging and three zebras ran across the path, followed by a woman hitting a wooden spoon against a pot.
“Get away, get away!” she yelled. She stopped, looked at me, and smiled. “They keep getting into my garden.”
“You have to protect the food we need,” I agreed.
The zebras and other animals were able to forage through the trees and the weeds by the shore, but there wasn’t nearly as much open grass for grazing because the soccer pitch and the baseball field had been plowed under and planted. The starts of little vines of zucchini and cucumber were already working their way up the backstop and the outfield fences. Each home was free to plant vegetables that they could use or share or trade. Most people were growing vegetables but some still had flowers, or little patches of grass, or gravel-covered Zen gardens.
I got to the house and was surprised that my mother was there. She was so busy being everywhere that it almost seemed like she was no place.
“Cookie?” she asked, gesturing to a plate on the table.
“You’ve been baking?”
“They were a present from Zoe.”
“But Zoe doesn’t like you,” I said.
“I think she likes me a lot better than she did before the attack.”
Our successful defense of our territory had had a very strong impact and effect on the entire community. Before, there had been doubts—was the plan going to work, and would anything we tried help to protect us? But people had now seen with their own eyes that if we worked together we could succeed, and knowing that made them work even harder. Those taking crossbow lessons were more dedicated. There were many people in self-defense classes learning karate. As fences between properties were taken out to allow more crops to be grown, those boards were being repurposed to reinforce our walls around the perimeter.
“These people here are sort of odd, but they really are nice,” I said, munching on a cookie.
“Odd seems to be working in our favor, but nice might still be too much of a problem to overcome.”
“We’ve made a lot of progress,” I pointed out.
“I don’t think we’re moving forward as fast as the rest of the world is moving backwards.”
“Are you going to explain that one to me?”
My mom reached over and brushed some crumbs off the table. “Each day we are making this place a little bit stronger, a little bit better at taking care of itself,” she said. “But I’m afraid that things out there are getting more dangerous faster than we can make them safer here.”
“But that’s their problem, the people out there.”
“That problem will end up here. Desperate people are more willing to do desperate things.” She popped a last bite of her cookie into her mouth, then stood up. “I’d better get going. I’m leaving Ward’s.”
“To go to our little island?”
“Not today. Later this week I’ll head over. Do you want to come with me today?”
I hardly saw my mother these days, so I jumped at the chance. “Yes, definitely. Where are you going?”
“I’m leading a security detail to take some people to Main Island to harvest edible plants,” she explained. “Where’s your brother?”
“He’s down on the beach with his friends. How about if I just leave him a note? He’ll be fine for a while.”
“It would be nice to have you and your crossbow along.”
“Who else is going?” I asked.
“Sam and Garth.”
I was glad. I didn’t want my crossbow to be the biggest part of my mother’s backup.
23
The heavy barricade was pushed to the side to allow us to go over the bridge and to Main Island. There were eleven people in our party. While everybody had a weapon of one sort or another, the only four with guns were my mother, Sam, Garth, and a woman named Eleanor. She was a fashion designer by trade and had helped make the Marine uniforms. She was trusted with one of our few and precious guns because she’d been raised on a farm and had previous experience with a rifle. The four of them, dressed in Marine uniforms, were the guards, while the other six, plus me, were going out to gather food.
Along with the fake uniforms, to protect the illusion Sam and Garth were clean-shaven and had cut their hair in a brush cut to look more like Marines; Eleanor had her hair tucked into her helmet to look regulation. Lots of people were doing that to try to look more authentic. They were also receiving basic training, being taught to act and think more like soldiers and less like civilians. It was about drills and following orders, but for the actors in the group this wasn’t training, this was “Method acting” so they could better portray their characters.
We walked through the trees on a dirt trail that paralleled the main cobblestoned path and led toward the ferry docks and the marina. We were going to cut off in the direction of our little island. There was a thick stand of trees over there that our scavengers believed would have mushrooms, some wild onions, and leaves that could be made into tea. There was also a chance we could swing close enough to our former camp to at least see if there was anybody living out there. They probably wouldn’t be able to find our buried stash of tools and supplies, but our secret garden wouldn’t be so secret to anybody who went out there.
We came out of the trees and my level of anxiety rose. We now had to travel across the open section, where a path of interlocking bricks ran through what had once been manicured grass and tended flower beds. Now the grass was long and the flowers were overwhelmed by the weeds that towered over them.
My mother ordered Eleanor to drop back and Sam to go out wide on the left, Garth on the right. Mom kept walking and I fell in right behind her, holding the crossbow at my side. I’d already loaded in a bolt, the safety was off, and my finger was on the trigger. I could swing it up and fire in the blink of an eye.
Between me and Eleanor were the three women and three men who were going to do the gathering. They were all carrying knives or shovels—which could technically be used as weapons, but it was unlikely that any of them would use them that way. They were all part of our “pacifist” group. They weren’t stationed at the walls and certainly couldn’t be counted on to defend the community, or themselves, in any significant way, but they were doing their part to keep us all alive. As my mother had said, nurses and doctors were needed in the f
ront lines but nobody expected them to shoot anybody. Of course, my mother, the Marine nurse, seemed just as capable of taking a life as she did of saving one.
Off to one side there was a tent town huddled in the shadow of the forest. There were two dozen or more tents of different sizes and colors. In different circumstances it might even have been pretty. Now it was just a worry, although they hadn’t been threatening to us in the past. There were a few people visible, and as we continued walking I noticed that more people had come out of the tents to watch us. Watching us was fine as long as they didn’t try to approach us. Most likely they were more afraid of us than we were of them. That was what we were counting on.
Up ahead was the marina. The way the island narrowed, there was no option but to get close to it. I thought back to that mob trying to get off the island in the first days. They were desperate to get back to the city. Now, from what I’d heard, everybody wanted to get away from the city. Was it possible that that was just slightly more than two months ago?
“Everybody tighten up!” my mother called out.
The sentries came in close until nobody was farther than a couple of arms’ lengths apart. As we closed in we could see a few people moving along the docks, laundry hanging from the masts of a couple of the boats, and two men posted at the gate—where Sam had once stood guard. They had rifles.
“Eyes wide open,” my mother said. “Remember. You’re Marines.”
Their guards eyed us and we watched them. They’d obviously sent out word of our appearance, and more people emerged. We were now outnumbered and possibly outgunned.
“Hey, Sammy!” somebody yelled out. “Is that you?” A man came out through the gate, along with two others.
“Who is that?” my mother asked quietly.
“That’s Jimmie and Johnny,” Garth answered.
“You met them that day trying to charge people for a boat ride back to the city,” Sam said.
I recognized them now—as well as the third man. He was the one my mother had forced to throw away his pistol. This wasn’t good.