by Tom Abrahams
Grissom grumbled and followed Junior to the charred remains of the campfire they’d built the night before. They plopped down on the ground opposite each other.
Junior eyed the fully dressed rabbit on the ground next to the char. He glared at Grissom. “We gonna eat it or stare at it?”
Grissom huffed. He took the meat of the animal and skewered it on a wooden spit fashioned from a mesquite branch.
Youthfully awkward was a kind way to describe Gil Grissom. Unlike Junior, he looked every bit his youthful age. His eyebrows were thick, his nose too big for his face, his cheeks dotted with pink outcroppings of acne. Above his upper lip and at his chin were dark wisps of hair. His neck was long and thin, and his Adam’s apple strained underneath the surface of his pale skin. His curly mop of hair sat unevenly atop his head like a bad wig.
“You don’t have to be mean all the time,” said Grissom. “I ain’t never done nothing to you other than maybe ribbing you sometimes.”
Junior shifted in the dirt, his abdominal muscles sore from the workout. “You’re not funny. I’d laugh if you were funny.”
Grissom twisted the meat to the middle of the spit and raised himself onto his knees to approach the fire pit. He dropped the spit into the twin wooden branches he’d put on either side of the fire. He took some thinly stripped bark and put it underneath the rabbit meat, and some dry leaves from a pile at his side, crumbled them in his hands, and sprinkled them atop the kindling pile. Using flint, he sparked the pile and blew the embers,, relighting the coals he’d used the night before. Minutes later, the rabbit was cooking.
“Be an hour,” said Grissom, scooting away from the growing flames. “Maybe an hour and a half.”
Junior nodded and pulled his knees up to his chest. He wrapped his arms around his legs and clasped his fingers in front of them. He stretched his back as he balanced his weight.
He looked past the flames, through the undulating heat above them and to the rolling hills to the west. The sun was perched atop them, framing them with a bright orange hue that stretched along the wave of uneven ground known as the Texas Hill Country.
“Where we headed?” asked Grissom. “We’ve been here for three days now. Probably time to move on.”
“The horses needed the rest,” said Junior. “We’ve been riding them hard since El Paso.”
“We head out tomorrow, then?”
Junior nodded again, his eyes still fixated on the low-sitting sun. “Yeah. We’ll ride for San Antonio, try to pick up some help there. Probably find some good men there.”
Grissom rolled the spit by twisting it with his fingers. “Nobody in El Paso wanted any part of it,” he said. “You think folks in San Antonio are going to be different?”
Without moving his head, Junior’s eyes left the distant hills and settled on Grissom. He licked his lips but said nothing.
Grissom shifted uncomfortably and scratched at the acne on one cheek. “I’m just asking,” he said. “I mean, we’re asking a lot and not paying much. That’s all I’m saying.”
Junior shook his head. “We’re offering people the chance to be legends. That should be enough.”
CHAPTER 3
FEBRUARY 6, 2044, 9:45 AM
SCOURGE + 11 YEARS, 4 MONTHS
NORMAN, OKLAHOMA
“Nebraska, huh?” said the short man pumping gas. “You headed north?”
“East,” said Taskar, the driver of a funeral hearse long past its prime. He made his living transporting people and things back and forth across the wall.
The gas station attendant switched hands on the pump. “East? What’s east, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Taskar rubbed one hand across the worn leather on the steering wheel. He glanced at the controls on the driver’s side door and considered rolling up his window.
“You got work back east?” the man pressed. “I hear there’s more and more work out there. Especially in the big cities, I hear there’s lots to be had.”
Taskar thumped his index finger on the wheel. “The government still controls everything. They’re the ones who have the jobs.”
The man looked over his shoulder at the slow-moving numbers of the low-pressure pump. “I ain’t the government and I got a job,” he said, his drawl dragging out every syllable into two.
Taskar reached into the center console and pulled out a wad of cash. “Good for you. What do I owe you?”
“Ain’t done yet,” said the man. “Next filling station heading east isn’t for another couple hundred miles. Might wanna let me finish.”
Taskar slid the rubber band from around the roll of bills and started counting. Money wasn’t worth what it had been before the Scourge, and it was only in the last couple of years the government had started circulating it again.
The pump clanked to a halt and the man drew the nozzle from the tank. He replaced it on the pump and stepped to the window. He whistled when he saw the cash.
“My,” said the man, “that’s a lot of dough. You must be doing government work. They’re the only ones who pay—”
“How much?”
The man looked over his shoulder at the numbers on the pump. “Three hundred,” he said, and held out his hand.
Taskar peeled off a trio of hundred-dollar bills and slapped it into the man’s waiting palm. “Thanks.” He kept the window down and slammed the hearse into drive.
He eased onto the highway and, with his knees controlling the wheel, wrapped the roll with the rubber band and put it back into the center console. He’d reached sixty miles per hour within a few seconds and was cruising on relatively new tires that hummed on the asphalt and concrete that made up the existing highways north of the wall.
He adjusted his weight in the cracked leather seat and put his arm on the open window, letting his hand drift in the chilly wind. It was too cold to have the window down, especially given the head congestion with which Taskar had been coping, but he wasn’t about to waste gasoline on air-conditioning. Plus, the cold air kept him awake. His newest job required expediency. He couldn’t afford a nap.
Taskar picked up a map from the passenger’s seat and looked at the lines he’d drawn to his destination. He probably had another thirteen or fourteen hours and nine hundred miles ahead of him.
He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw, in the distance, the tall sign for the service station as it sank below the horizon. Taskar thought about how curt he’d been with the curious man pumping gas. He could have been nicer. He could have answered the man’s questions, or at least pretended to answer them, but that wasn’t Taskar’s way.
He didn’t like questions. His profession as a post-Scourge incognito courier demanded discretion. All he needed to know was where to go and when. He didn’t want names; he didn’t want sob stories or fantastic tales of the new gold rush. He wanted half up front and the rest of the payment at the destination.
This job was different.
Two weeks earlier he’d been driving north, having navigated past the wall for the umpteenth time in the last decade. He’d dropped off his fare near Oklahoma City and stopped at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant to get some coffee and a smoked meat sandwich.
He’d sat down at his regular spot in the back corner and opened the wax paper wrapping his sandwich when a woman sat down in the seat across from him. She’d planted her hands flat on the table and blew out a breath.
“Can I help you?” asked Taskar.
“You’re the one who provides illicit transportation services?”
Taskar had wrapped his callused fingers around the soft white bread and shoved a corner of the sandwich into his mouth. He’d chewed the cold meat and with his mouth full replied, “Depends.”
The woman had rubbed her hands on the table, as if she were wiping it clean with her fingers. “On what does it depend, Mr. Taskar?”
Taskar had swallowed his mouthful and took a swig of room temperature water. “Who are you?”
“I’m a client.”
It was
n’t unusual for people he didn’t know to approach him for work. It wasn’t weird that she seemed to relish the clandestine nature of their conversation. Still, he’d sensed something was different about the woman. Something was…off.
“Who recommended me?”
The woman had smiled. “People.”
Taskar had studied her for a moment then took another bite. The meat was too dry and it had stuck to the roof of his mouth. Then it hit him. “You’re government.”
The woman’s eye had twitched and she’d nodded almost imperceptibly. She’d slid her fingers inward, raising her palms from the table, and held them there as would a concert pianist about to begin a concerto. “I’m the person who wants to pay you a sizable amount of money to transport something from this side of the wall to the other,” she’d said. “That’s all that matters.”
Taskar had set his sandwich down on the wax paper and swallowed another gulp of the water. “These last couple of years have gotten tougher,” he’d said. “When it was as bad here as it was south of the wall, nobody but the Cartel cared who came or went. Most people thought they’d find a better life here, made the trek, then headed back south again.”
“I recall,” the woman had said.
“Now that the government has the power back on in the cities, has communication back in parts, and people are starting to make a go of things again, it isn’t so easy to go back and forth.”
“What are you saying?”
Taskar had run his tongue along the roof of his mouth and smacked his lips. He’d lowered his voice. “I’m saying there are a lot of risks involved. There are wheels to grease. Going south is a lot easier than coming north.”
The woman had smirked. “That’s not a problem,” she’d assured him, “from a compensatory standpoint or from a logistical one. We’ll take care of it. All of it. You just show up where I tell you to show up on the date I tell you to be there.”
From under the table, she’d produced a roll of cash larger than any Taskar had ever seen in person. It had told him two things: this was a job worth taking, and it was a job he knew he shouldn’t take.
The woman had placed the roll on the table, stood from her seat, and walked out without saying another word. Taskar had scanned the room and then quickly plucked the money roll from the table. Wrapped around it and tucked underneath a rubber band was a piece of paper with an address and a date.
That piece of paper was now stuck to his rearview mirror. The date was tomorrow, February 7, 2044. The address was 1600 Clifton Road, Atlanta, Georgia.
Atlanta. He hadn’t been that far east since the Scourge. He’d driven to and from New Orleans, or what was left of it, Little Rock, and even Birmingham, Alabama. One trip took him west to Phoenix and another to Denver. He’d turned down a trip to Chicago. Not enough money in it, too much risk and not enough reward. He wondered what Atlanta was like.
He’d heard rumors the new government had a huge presence in Atlanta. The city had recovered more quickly than most, and survivors from other cities and towns had flocked there, accelerating its regrowth. A big reason for that was electricity. There were two hydroelectric dams, one north of the city and one south, that never stopped producing power after the Scourge.
Taskar slid down in his seat. The cruise control was broken and his ankle was already sore from the driving he’d done. It would be a long trek.
From the driver’s side window, he saw clouds gathering in the distance. They were gray, almost black, and some were perched above curtains of rain. He tried to figure out which way the clouds were headed. As much as he knew the land needed rain, he didn’t want to deal with it on his road trip. He hadn’t replaced the windshield wipers in four years. He sucked in a deep breath. The cold air didn’t yet smell like rain. That was good. His eyes drifted from the clouds, back to the road, and down to the money in the center console. He could only imagine what he might do with twice that much once the job was over.
He looked at himself in the rearview mirror. “You could give this up,” he said aloud. “You could find a little place, settle down, get out of the game.”
A smile crept across his face as he thought about the possibilities and envisioned a life unrecognizable from the one he lived now. He put one hand on the money, gripping it with his fingers.
He hoped this job was worth it. He really did. Even though in the back of his mind, he knew it wasn’t.
CHAPTER 4
FEBRUARY 6, 2044, 3:00 PM
SCOURGE + 11 YEARS, 4 MONTHS
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Lomas Ward stood in the plaza and shoved his hands into his pockets. He spun around on his worn leather heels and looked at the decrepit skyline of his city. He remembered a time when it gleamed with promise. But it was so long ago it was hard to impose his memory over the ever-present sepia that cast itself onto everything and everyone. That promise died with Lomas’s parents and siblings in the days and months after the Scourge. That promise was before his life crumbled around him. It was before the offer.
At thirty-five, Lomas had lived half his life in this sick world, one where civilization peeled back to unearth the worst in people. He’d tried to make a go of it, to find work, raise a family, and provide a home filled with love and the promise of a better future. Some people with better connections than Lomas had managed much better. Many more had done much worse. Lomas had heard about life south of the wall, the stories of barbarism and lawlessness. He considered himself among the fortunate.
That was gone now. All he had was the offer.
They’d come to him at his lowest, in the hours after his wife had died from a gunshot wound. He was grieving her in the clinic’s chapel on bended knee when a firm hand touched his shoulder. In his grief, he thought at first it was the hand of God. It wasn’t.
As he stood here in the plaza, feeling the cool northerly breeze on his face, he wondered if maybe the hand did belong to an angel.
“We’ll find your children a good home,” they’d told him. “They’ll never have to worry about food or violence again,” they’d promised. “They’ll go to a connected family.”
Lomas had thought they were joking until the earnestness in the wrinkles above their eyes and around their mouths convinced him they were on the level.
“But you have to sign on the dotted line,” they’d insisted. “You have to sign before somebody else beats you to it. This is a limited-time offer.”
They’d given him twenty hours to think about it, one last night to spend with his sons.
He’d made the choice that produced a thick knot in his throat that was still there two days later as he stood in the plaza.
Lomas adjusted his collar on his neck, folding the stained fabric along the creases. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes with his knuckles and rubbed the thick, puffy circles that threatened to close them.
He stuffed his hands back into his pockets, tugging his pants beneath his hips, and turned back to the nondescript building behind him. It was the kind of place he’d probably passed a thousand times and never noticed. The multistory brick façade was windowless except for a rectangular transom above a wide metal door. Lomas approached the door and raised his hand. He hesitated, his balled fist hovering between his past and future. He bit his lower lip and, as instructed, knocked several times, waited, and knocked again.
A hollow voice blared through a stainless steel speaker box next to the door. “Lomas Ward?”
Lomas stared at the box, searching for a button to push. There wasn’t one.
“Lomas Ward?” asked the voice again.
Lomas looked over his shoulder and back at the speaker. “Yes,” he said tentatively, his eyes still searching for the microphone. “I’m Lomas. I’m here to see—”
A loud buzzer followed a metallic click at the door. “Please pull on the door to enter.”
Lomas gripped the door handle in front of him and tugged. The door opened outward, revealing a square waiting room bathed in white light. He crossed the thresho
ld, and when the door clacked shut behind him, the buzzer stopped.
He looked overhead at fluorescent tubes of light. He hadn’t seen bulbs like that in years. Most everything was low-power LEDs in the places that had power. These lights were much brighter than those to which he was accustomed, and he squinted, surveying the space around him. There was a single chair in one corner with a hand-printed sign above it that read SIT HERE.
“Please sit in the chair provided,” the voice said, as if on cue. “Someone will be with you in a moment.”
Lomas noticed a door that didn’t have a handle or knob. “I’m here to see Dr. Morel. Charles Mor—”
“Someone will be with you in a moment,” said the hollow voice. “Please be seated in the chair provided.”
Lomas stepped over to the chair and sat down. It was hard and uncomfortable, and he shifted his weight to try to relax. It was futile. He planted his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
His boys’ faces flashed in his mind. Their small features, their smiles, their hands in his, their arms wrapped around his neck. Lomas swallowed against the thick knot in his throat and pushed the images aside. He’d done what he had to do. He’d given them a future they deserved, a future he couldn’t otherwise provide.
Lomas sat in the chair for close to thirty minutes. When the door opened, it wasn’t Dr. Charles Morel, one of the men who’d convinced him to trade his future for that of his children. It was a tall, rail-thin woman with jet-black hair pulled tight against her oval head into a long ponytail. Her cartoonish arched eyebrows conveyed a permanent sense of disapproval and her tight-fitting clothes gave the clear idea that she was among the connected. The Scourge hadn’t done to her what it had done to most everyone else.
The woman stood in the doorway, holding it ajar with a booted foot. She held a digital tablet in her hands. Lomas hadn’t seen one in a dozen years. He sat back in the chair, gripping his knees with his fingers.