ASCENSION: THE SYSTEMIC SERIES

by Callahan, K. W.

  As some of us worked to get supplies untied from the top of the SUV while others worked on the tent, the sky began to grow dark at a much faster rate than I’d expected.

  “Storm must be on the way,” I said, squinting at a large cloud approaching from the south. The air was calm though and quite still. It didn’t feel like storm weather.

  There was indeed a storm on the way though, just not the kind I’d expected.

  The strange hum in the air grew increasingly louder as the cloud approached, and we quickened our pace as we worked to pull items necessary for the night from the SUV’s roof rack. I began wondering if maybe this was some sort of electrical storm on its way.

  It was not.

  Just as we managed to get the tent unfurled, on the ground, and began running support poles through its nylon fabric, a humming torrent of viscous insects descended upon us. At first, due to their size, I thought they were some sort of horsefly or beetle. But I quickly realized they were mosquitoes the likes of which we’d never seen before, and after making their acquaintance, I hoped we’d never see again. And I’d say, judging from the voracity with which they attacked, it must have been quite some time since they’d tasted human blood around these parts. Being the nasty little vampires that they were, and thirsting for our succulent, plasma-engorged flesh, they attacked us with the intensity of a hungry lion and with a swirling tornado-like force. They whipped around us, biting us, getting into our eyes, our ears, our noses, our mouths. It was almost impossible to see or to breathe or to think or to do anything other than run for the safety of our vehicle.

  We dropped everything. I grabbed Cashmere. Claire grabbed Jason. And we all dove back into the SUV, slamming doors, rolling up windows, and spending the rest of the night sweating, scratching, and continuing to kill the tiny tormentors that had managed to sneak their way inside with us during our retreat.

  The process of trying to get any sort of decent sleep was nearly impossible because just as one of us began to drift off, someone else would cough or slap at a mosquito or start scratching. Poor little Jason had gotten it particularly bad. He had little raised and itchy bumps all over his face, and he slept fitfully throughout the night, often crying out and then scratching himself until his skin bled. We’d have to hold him tight to keep him from scratching, which made it even more tortuous, and then he’d scream and cry and struggle and wake the rest of the group up if they weren’t awake already dealing with problems of their own.

  The next morning, Will and I left the others in the car while we covered up as much exposed skin as possible, rushed outside the safety of the SUV, collected our camping supplies, tied them as best we could to the luggage rack, and beat it the heck out of there. We drove slowly on for the rest of the morning and pulled over at around noon to have lunch and take a short nap since everyone was still exhausted from their sleepless night.

  It had been extremely slow going since we’d made it around the lake. Being low on fuel, we were doing our best to conserve at all costs. At times, the road was so flat that I’d take my foot off the accelerator and simply let the vehicle roll along at its idle speed to reduce fuel consumption. If our speed fell below walking pace or we came to a slight incline, I’d touch the accelerator as gently as I could until I could get us rolling again without my additional accelerator input. We were in no rush, so our snail’s pace really didn’t matter too much.

  We couldn’t keep the vehicle’s windows open, since even during the day, the swarms of insects were overwhelming. They’d ram themselves against our windows in failed attempts to get at the tasty morsels within. About every 10 or 15 minutes – or however long it took before we could no longer bear the sweltering heat – I’d turn the air conditioner on for a minute, maybe two, getting it just cool enough inside so that it wasn’t stifling. Still, with all of us jammed into the tiny space, and with none of us having been able to shower in the past few days, the heat combined with the smell made it almost intolerable. Tempers were short to say the least, and tensions ran high.

  We made it to just north of the Everglades Parkway before we ran out of gas. This left us with around 20 miles ahead of us to reach our destination – the sandy shores of Miami. 20 miles when we were back in southern Illinois or Tennessee might not have seemed all that bad. In fact, we might actually have enjoyed such a hike, but not here, not in the swamps of Florida, and definitely not during the peak of summer.

  Having to continue our journey on foot was torturous. We could only travel during the daylight hours from around ten in the morning – once the sun’s vicious rays had a chance to send many of the flying pests into hiding – until about four in the afternoon, since we had to get camp set up before the droning cloud of hungry insects reappeared and again descended upon us.

  At night, we’d cram ourselves into our four-person tent – all nine of us and Cashmere the cat. It was horrible to say the least. There was little sleeping, a lot of complaining, whining, and even some crying – mostly from the kids – and all in all, the next several days were pure hell.

  We had used up almost all our bug repellant on the first day of the trek. Because of our lack of bug spray, and the presence of insects even during the day, we had to continue our hike wearing long sleeves, pants, and hats, even though the sweltering summer heat was intensely oppressive. Each of us – even Jason – was straddled with as many supplies as we could carry. Strapped to us were our food and water, weapons and ammunition, extra clothing and bedding, medical supplies, and anything else we could carry and that we thought we might need for when we reached Miami. This not only made for slow going, but we were sweating like crazy and rapidly burning through our fresh water supply. By the end of the second day of the hike, our clothing was drenched in our own moisture. We stunk, we were itchy, and we were angry – not at one another, but at the shitty situation. Unfortunately, we took much of our aggravation and frustration out upon one another simply because we had no other outlet. I endured the brunt of this frustration as people questioned why we had left Gordon and the safety of his cozy little spot on the coast to come all the way down here. I was even questioning it myself. But I had to persevere, and I kept reminding our crew that we were almost through this final leg of our trip to Miami and that we’d soon be enjoying the fruits of our labor.

  I secretly prayed that what I was telling them was the truth.

  Worse yet – as if it could get much worse – as we reached the outskirts of the Miami area, we came to find that it was like a war zone. As we worked our way into the Hialeah area, we took shelter near the Westland Mall. There was a sort of open air market there where merchants were bartering their wares, so Will and I left the rest of the group in the shelter of an abandoned ranch-style home and took a trip over to see what we could find out about the local situation as well as pick up some supplies.

  We ended up talking to a middle-aged man who was working as a fresh fruit vendor at the market – Myron was his name. He seemed a decent enough guy. He’d been a dentist in his pre-flu life. He told us that he still fixed teeth occasionally, but his fruit stand was his bread and butter while the dentistry business was hit and miss.

  “Not many people coming in for their six-month checkups anymore,” he shook his said sadly. “Mostly tooth extractions these days.”

  As we chatted, he explained that some sort of power struggle was currently taking place in Miami. As he’d heard it, an outside group of mercenary sorts had come to the area and were currently vying for power. He said they’d come in with armored vehicles and bands of armed men and were pretty much laying down the law. Myron explained that these people had told him and the other vendors that they were going to have to pay a “security fee” each week and had given them a list of the goods and associated quantities with which they could pay. Myron said he wasn’t happy about the demands upon his already meager supplies, but he agreed that if these people actually provided the security they were promising, he was willing to give it a shot. He said he’d had prob
lems with theft and robberies recently, and he felt that a little peace of mind was worth paying for these days.

  After we were done chatting, we ended up trading Myron a bottle of aspirin, some heavy-duty pain killers, a dozen rounds of .22 ammunition, four shotgun shells, and two of the four remaining ounces of silver that I’d held onto in exchange for a box of assorted fruit that contained pineapples, oranges, lemons, as well as a couple coconuts. We also got four gallons of fresh drinking water and talked Myron into throwing a bag of dried fish into the deal.

  “So where you headed?” he asked as we finalized our transaction and exchanged our goods.

  “For the coast,” I told him.

  “Be careful,” he said. “The guys that swept through here not long ago are headed east towards the ocean from what I understand. They seem like the sort to shoot first and ask questions later, so if you run into them, stay out of their way. I would advise doing your traveling at night if all possible…although then you have to watch out for robbers and cutthroats.”

  “Great,” Will frowned. “Sounds like we’re screwed either way.”

  “Just keep your guard up and be ready to duck into the shadows if you see someone coming. Best at this point just to try to stay out of the way until all this mess shakes itself out. There are a lot of people around here who want someone to lay down the law and put some order to the chaos that’s been going on. But some are happy with the way things are. And those people are willing to fight to keep it that way.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” I shook his hand. “We aren’t looking for any trouble. We’ve had more than our fair share.”

  “Haven’t we all,” nodded Myron grimly.

  By the way,” I said as I picked up the box of fruit and fish, and grabbed a gallon container of water, “you have any insulin?”

  “Insulin?” Myron shook his head. “No. Don’t see many medical supplies like that through here,” he said. He held up the aspirin bottle we’d traded, “Mostly stuff like this…aspirin, vitamins, cold medicine, sometimes some penis pills, occasionally some antibiotics, but rarely anything like insulin…sorry.”

  “Thanks anyway,” I said. “Thought I’d try. You know of anywhere they might have that kind of stuff?”

  He thought for a minute, “Might try downtown. That’s where the main market is. Lot of the specialty goods show up there.”

  “Thanks again,” I said as we headed back to rejoin the rest of the group.

  “My pleasure,” Myron waved as we left. “Come back any time!”

  We sheltered for the rest of the night in the little ranch-style home. We ate fruit, dried fish, and tried to rehydrate while at the same time conserving some of our water supply for the remainder of the trip. We only had a few more miles until we reached downtown, but with all the fighting that was supposedly going on, we didn’t have any idea of just how long it would take us to make it there.

  We heard gunfire and caught the sounds of distant explosions later that afternoon. It kept up throughout the evening and as we tried to sleep that night as the fighting wore on in the Miami area. Will, dad, and I shared the night watch.

  The next morning, we took a vote as how best to proceed. We wanted to get moving again, but we also didn’t want to get caught up in the fighting taking place around the city.

  The group as a whole decided to shelter in place until the fighting died down. We could afford to wait a little while, and we all admitted that we needed the rest. The area around us seemed relatively calm for the moment; therefore, we hunkered down in the little home for almost two weeks. We bartered the few remaining excess supplies we had to Myron at the nearby market for meager amounts of food and water, and continued to gather information about what was going on in the rest of the city until it sounded as though the fighting had diminished – or at least moved on to places far enough away – for us to safely proceed.

  We waited until night to depart on what we hoped would be the last stint of the Miami leg of our trip. Not only did we want to avoid any residual fighting that might still be going on along our route, but the night brought with it cooler temperatures. The problem was, at night the bugs were worse, and by the time we actually made it to the shores of Biscayne Bay, we looked like a group of the walking dead. And while we may have appeared to be wandering zombies, we were the ones being eaten alive by Florida’s creepy-crawlies. Therefore, we didn’t spend much time looking for shelter once we’d reached the coast. We worked our way out to Miami Beach, found an old apartment building, and quickly settled down in hopes of soon being on our way out of Miami and on to a place where we could finally enjoy safety, security, solitude, and some peace and quiet.

  CHAPTER 9

  While Jake might not have gotten it, Ava realized just what handing over control to their generals truly meant. It meant that, in all likelihood, eventually one or more of them would grow too big for his britches and make some sort of power play. It could take a year, two years, maybe longer, but one day, one of these men would most likely become weary of hefting what he felt was a heavy load for someone else. And even though Jake and Ava had provided them with situations in which they could rule their own little fiefdoms until they handed over power to one of their family members or just grew old and retired to live out their days on Miami’s sun-baked beaches, it wouldn’t be enough. They’d grow greedy or power hungry and either try to pull in several or even all of the other generals to assist them in their move, or maybe just go it alone.

  When Ava told Jake this one evening as they lay beneath the soft silk sheets of their master-suite’s oversized king bed after a ferocious, lust-filled sex romp, he told her she was crazy. Jake thought in terms of weeks, and more often in terms of just days or even hours; therefore, to be considering what would happen in a year or two seemed ridiculous and unnecessarily long-term to him.

  “I might not even be alive tomorrow. Why should I worry about what’s going to happen next year?” he asked her incredulously.

  “Because, if and when next year rolls around, and you haven’t thought about it, and you find yourself staring down the barrel of a gun held by someone you thought you could trust, you’ll find out exactly why you should have thought about it,” she warned.

  “Okay,” Jake gave in. “So what are we supposed to do about it?”

  “We rotate staff,” she said.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Jake frowned at her, rolling over and lighting two cigarettes, one of which had handed to Ava.

  Ava was tiring somewhat of having to explain every little detail of their operation to the organization’s “leader” each time she made a decision.

  “It means that we keep our generals on their toes by not allowing them to build too much loyalty among the men under their direct control,” she told Jake. “We don’t want their neighborhoods becoming unorganized because we’re constantly moving their teams around, but we also don’t want them getting so organized that they can begin plotting against us.”

  “So how do we do that?” Jake shook his head, still not getting it.

  “Here’s what I was thinking,” Ava said. It was actually what she’d already decided to do, but she had to put it to Jake in these terms so that he could mull the idea, make it his own, and then convince himself that it was his and that he should take credit for it. “We rotate half of each general’s men to another general every month. The following month, we rotate the other half in a cyclical rotation throughout the year. In this way, they continue to utilize the same labor pool, but the generals don’t become so familiar with the men – and vice versa – on a regular basis that they begin to build their own little armies that maintain loyalties solely to them.”

  Jake nodded, sucking on his cigarette, thinking.

  “It’s not a perfect plan,” Ava said. “I don’t think there is a perfect plan, but if it doesn’t completely eliminate the chance of a coup, it at least significantly decreases the chances of such an event by inhibiting the processes invo
lved in getting something like that organized. It also increases the likelihood of a leak among the men should something start to take shape, which would allow us to quash any potential uprising before it takes shape.”

  Jake nodded again, “I like it,” he said. “Let me sleep on it,” he crushed out his cigarette in an ash tray atop the nightstand and then rolled over on top of Ava for another round.

  Ava knew that when Jake said he liked something, he’d already made up his mind to go with her idea and make it his own. This pleased her just enough to make his presence atop her again bearable.

  * * *

  Jake and Ava found that their organization rapidly settled in and expanded into its role of controlling Miami. The vast majority of the area residents willingly accepted their leadership and even seemed to like having some structure put to their incredibly difficult and dangerous post-flu lives. It was as though they had been waiting for someone to come along and put a little clarity to a world where the road ahead was anything but clear.

  Jake and Ava also discovered that the resource situation in Miami was far better than it had been in Atlanta. They seized entire tanker trucks full of gasoline and even a cargo ship full of the oil.

  The sex trade was also good in Miami, but the sex trade was good everywhere. What Jake and Ava found most changed from their Atlanta experience was the state of the food supply. The food trade in the area was fantastic due to local farmers. A large portion of the remaining population in the area had undertaken agricultural roles due to their ability to grow a variety of foods throughout the year in Miami’s tropical climate. There was an abundant supply of fresh fruit, vegetables, and of course, seafood.

  Better yet, people appeared to be quite open to Jake and Ava’s idea for a currency with which to transact their trade. There’d been a lot of confusion and disagreement about how to handle barter-style commerce in which one side was offering a good or service as payment for which the other side had no need. And there was constant paranoia about how to keep the variety of currencies being used secure from theft, which posed an ever-present threat.