“I don’t need any more friends.”
“You’re not going to keep any of the ones you have if you keep acting like this. Starting with me, Baptiste.”
I shook my head at him.
“I’m not joking,” he said. “I can’t trust you when you do things like that. It’s too much.”
“You’re right.” He had a point. I was already starting to realize how embarrassed I’d be if Sara were to find out how I’d acted. “I went too far... I get that. Sometimes I lose perspective on this stuff.”
“It’s a problem.”
“I know. That’s why you’re here. You balance us out, make people think we’re not so bad. That’s why we’re a team, Graham.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “That’s why I respect you.”
“Yeah... okay. Just... just tone it down, alright? I need to know I can count on you.”
“You can count on me, Graham. You should know that by now.”
“Yeah... okay.” He turned back to the trees.
I didn’t ask him not to tell anyone about the tire; I just hoped he’d only tell Lisa.
I was starting to feel the shame again.
We reached McCartney Lake a couple of minutes later. Lisa was waiting for us when we arrived.
I stopped the cart and looked over at Graham, waiting to see what was going on between them; I can’t say I wasn’t curious.
“You’re late,” she said.
Graham hopped down and walked over to her. “Blame Baptiste.”
“I always do.”
Graham gave her a hug and then a kiss. “I love you,” he said to her.
They kept kissing.
I climbed down the cart and hurried inside.
I really didn’t need to see that kind of thing right before dinner.
Today is Sunday, December 9th.
When I was growing up, so a long time ago, I used to watch all those movies about the end of the world. I stayed away from anything with zombies, partly out of respect for my father, but also because that shit is just so stupid.
But everything else was fair game.
I remember some of those movies pretty well. Most of them had Kevin Costner in them for some reason, and most of them were all kinds of suck. People would mope around starving and getting sick... that or they would just go out and murder each other. It was like those were the only two settings available for post-apocalyptic societies, sad sack or crazy-eyed killer. The end would come and civilization would drain away in an instant, people forgetting to bathe and wash their clothes, even forgetting how to use a goddamn fork at the dinner table.
None of it made any sense; I think the entire genre was just a refuge for wooden characters and plot holes you could drive a tractor-trailer through. I couldn’t get into any story where there wasn’t a plausible attempt to explain just how things got so messed up in the first place. Something more concrete than “global warming” or “monkey pox”, something that set up a little thread of how we got from normal to fucked in X number of years. You’d be surprised how rare that kind of explanation is.
But there was one movie I liked, or at least it was better than the one about the mutant with fish gills or the one where Denzel Washington carries a crime-fighting bible. It was called Testament, and while it did have a little bit of Kevin Costner in it, it didn’t suck like the others. It just made the end of the world suck.
In it the world ended with a nuclear war, and people began to die from the radiation, starting with the little kids. There weren’t any grand adventures, or bad guys on Jet Skis, or idiot-savants with homemade helicopters. There was just an endless stream of bad things happening and no way to stop them from coming no matter how hard you tried. It’s not like the main character actually has the power to fix the end of the fucking world.
In real life things happened differently than it did in any movie, but my world still ended. Things started spiraling out of control until one day we realized that we were on our own.
I’d come to Cochrane for the same reason I’d gone to every other little nowhere in Ontario, to consult on community safety, as if the problems in small towns are anything like what we’d done in big bad Toronto. I’d shown up and given my presentation, and then an army reserve regiment closed both highways to Timmins. I wasn’t going to make my flight home.
And things went downhill from there.
Over the next couple of days they called a state of emergency provincewide, to deal with the riots in Toronto. They transferred out pretty much all of the local police detachments, sending them down to reinforce the crowd control on Yonge Street.
I’d known the moment our airport shuttle was turned back that the chaos wasn’t temporary. There wouldn’t be any more police, or government, and there definitely wasn’t going to be any more fuel shipped in. Whatever we had now was all we could hope for, and we knew that eventually what we did have would run out.
That all happened before the comet had even reached us, before they’d even tried (and failed) to divert the thing. The world was falling apart ten months in advance.
Cochrane didn’t have it too bad at first, better than places like Timmins, where the wrong people took over, or Iroquois Falls, where they learnt first-hand just how bad cholera can get when you mix shitting and drinking. We worked together and tried to keep people safe, and for a while it seemed to be working.
But things got worse and people started to die, not character actors and reams of underpaid extras, but real people like Fiona’s father, who used to coach her in hockey and had actually met Don Cherry at a restaurant in Montreal once, and Ant’s older brother who used to drive an old Mustang and taught him everything he knew about being the centre of attention, and Sara’s two little sisters who served as joint maids of honour at her wedding and three years later as joint shoulders to cry on during her divorce.
Those people and a crapload more are dead now, from disease, from The Fires, or by the hands of people who didn’t have their own supplies but did have their very own guns.
But I think it’s worse not knowing what happened to the people you love. Obviously the networks are down. Any phone that isn’t equipped to talk to European or Nigerian sats is a brick as far as calling anyone; my fancy phone’s useless since every satellite system on this side of the Atlantic has gone offline. Justin managed to get his hands on a phone that can reach the Nigerian array for voice-only on a good day, for a few minutes at a time, if he angles it right... but that hasn’t done much to get us out of the dark.
That means that Graham doesn’t know about his parents, or his older brother or baby sister; he hasn’t heard anything about what’s happening in Illinois. And I don’t know what’s happened to Alanna and Cassy, either... but since the AM radio’s full of static and we don’t see planes in the sky anymore, I’ve already made my guess. I don’t need to listen to shortwave signals from New England to tell me that there’s no silver lining out beyond the horizon, no life left for me back home on Sackville Street. All I have left is here.
Ant used to make breakfast every once in awhile. He made the best pancakes and french toast, but he always left the kitchen a mess once he'd finished, flour on every surface and sometimes even a pale yellowy goop dripping from light fixtures and window blinds.
But none of that mattered when it came time to taste what came out of his kitchen explosions; it was always worth the extra clean-up afterwards.
This morning Fiona found me coming out of the bathroom and asked me if I'd play chef for once. I know she'd always enjoyed helping Ant when he was running the kitchen at breakfast time, but I'm not sure I can be the replacement she's looking for.
“I don't know what causes it,” she said. “For some reason most men seem to have a talent for breakfasts and barbecue. I like that you guys are good at a couple of things.”
“I used to be okay at making breakfast,” I said. “But I was never as good as Ant. My specialty was eggs.”
Fiona let out a little giggle. “Like fryi
ng eggs? Is that really something you can specialize in? A particular way of cracking the shells?”
“Omelettes, goofball. Sometimes I'd get up early and spend like an hour putting together the world's most perfect set of ingredients: red and yellow bell peppers, fresh spinach, never frozen... portobello mushrooms... some nice chorizo sausage if I'd remembered to pick it up the day before... there was only one problem.”
“What?”
I smiled as I remembered it all. “Cassy hated omelettes. She never actually tried one, but she'd already made up her mind about them. But I wouldn't give up. I'd make those damned things every Saturday, and every Saturday she'd just have a bowl of cereal. I just thought if I kept making them long enough she'd finally feel obligated to at least take one little bite. She never did.”
Fiona put her hand on my shoulder blade and gave me a little squeeze. “Will you make me an omelette?” she asked.
“I can do that.”
“Good. I promise not to eat it. Not even a bite.”
That made me smile.
She came with me into the kitchen, keeping me company while I put the ingredients together, with the added bonus that she knows where everything’s kept. We talked about little things that didn't matter, like how we had two roosters but that they never fought, since one of them didn't seem to notice or care that there were hens around. I'd named that rooster Cock Hudson, but even I don't have a full handle on the reference.
Fiona's always good with that kind of conversation, keeping me interested while keeping it light. It's hard for me to back away from the heavier topics, but Fiona keeps me penned in and happy for it. She makes me into somebody fun for just a little while, and I love that about her. It’s not that she doesn’t know how serious life is; she just knows that I don’t need to spend any extra time on the serious pieces.
Once my omelette bar was set up and stocked, Fiona guided everyone in one by one to place their orders. I felt like a short order cook, and maybe a little put-upon, but she stayed with me through it all, poking fun at Matt for saying he's allergic to red peppers but not the yellow ones, and laughing out loud when Lisa asked for one with just eggs and cheese and all scrambled up “if it's not that much trouble”.
Once our customers were fed I made Fiona her omelette, and she asked for everything in it even though I'm pretty sure she doesn't like mushrooms.
She waited for me to finish making mine, and then we sat down and ate them together. It was a nice moment to spend with her, a moment I'd always wanted to have with Cassy, father and daughter and fried and folded chicken embryos.
But then again I guess I'd already had those moments, every Saturday from when Cassy was a baby right up until that Saturday just before I'd left on my last trip up north to teach site security to people who never listened. The two of us eating breakfast beside one another with nothing else getting in the way. I'd already gotten what I wanted; it didn’t matter that Cassy always chose to eat cereal instead.
I took the mare out for a ride after breakfast. I conveniently forgot that I’d agreed to help Lisa with digging out the wiring trench.
I guess it isn’t fair, with me prattling on and on about how no one should be out on their own, and then I grab my gunbelt and I take a trip by myself.
But you know what? Life isn’t fair. I always wanted to be three inches taller and I certainly didn’t choose to start growing my forehead at age twenty-six.
I gave Sara and Fiona their hugs goodbye before I left, with both of them shaking their heads at what a charming hypocrite I’ve become.
I took Nelson Road around the north side of McCartney Lake, riding by the cottages we set up for the Tremblays and the Porters, as well as the other half dozen houses that are sitting empty and slowly crumbling. I looped around the forest at the end of the road, taking the east route so I’d stay out of the shade, and then I was on the trail that curves up and around Coleman Lake and finds its way up to Highway 652.
The healthy trees end here and the destruction starts, with an old farmhouse that didn’t survive the fires. I turned right and made my way to Murphy Road, just before the West Gate, and then I followed it north to that little marshy pond that always smells a little like gasoline.
I’ve gone further than this before, all the way up to the banks of the Sucker River, riding alongside it until I reach the little collection of burnt houses that used to be known as Florida for some stupid reason. I’ve let Fiona come with me a few times; she takes the mare and I take the gelding, since whenever he isn’t hitched he has a strange walk that’s always a little too close to a trot and it takes some effort to keep getting him to slow down.
Today I wanted to be alone. I didn’t even really want to ride a horse, so I climbed off the mare at that cruddy little lake, and I took a whiff of that toxic smell that I’ve somehow grown to miss. You wouldn’t think you’d miss the long lost smell of gas station. I slipped on the mare’s halter and hitched her to a thin birch tree, and I started walking along the edge of the water.
That’s when I saw something that didn’t belong, a rubber glove lying in the muck. You get used to garbage when you grow up in a city, but up here you just don’t see that much of it, and usually it’s beer cans or fishing line or old shotgun shells from even older shotguns. A rubber glove is not something you expect out here. It’s surprisingly rare to encounter such a thing as a deep woods enema.
I didn’t pick it up or anything, since it’s not much more appealing to touch than a used condom, and I kept walking until I found a second glove. That made sense in a way, two gloves for two hands, but it made the whole scene look less like an accident and more like waste disposal. And then I saw the broken glass. It wasn’t cloudy like a beer bottle or thick like a mason jar; it looked more clinical than that, like something you’d want to test your urine with. It was enough to make me curious.
I started scouring the area looking for more, and it wasn’t long before I found it, more glass, another set of gloves, and then something completely out of place, a two or three foot diameter well with some kind of hard plastic cover. I knelt down beside it, stuck my fingers into the grip holes, and then I slowly lifted it up and to the side.
It’s times like that when I wonder how many other people get the urge to pee into a well.
But this wasn’t a well; instead of a dark hole it was a hole down to something bright... well, not bright but certainly not total blackness. And the hole came with its own rope ladder.
If you'd have come upon something like this in Panjwaii District, the proper procedure would have involved lobbing a grenade down the hole, or if you enjoy risking your life unnecessarily, you could always toss something down that’s more in the stun and surprise category and hope to climb down and disarm whoever’s there before they shoot you. I wasn’t equipped to do either, and I knew at this point that if anyone was down there they were probably well aware of the idiot who’d just removed their manhole cover.
But it was probably empty, telling from the dirt and spiderweb that had covered the lid and the fact that I had trouble believing that anyone would be hidden underground so close by without us running into them at some point in the past eighteen months.
As I climbed down the ladder into the hole and moved toward the greenish light below, I knew that I was possibly on my way to making the dumbest mistake of my life, especially since I had a perfectly good set of body armour just a half hour’s ride away.
What I found at the bottom was light fixture of LEDs, inside what looked like a school bus with the seats ripped out. The windows were there, looking out on dirt and grass roots, while along one wall was a cheap laminate countertop on top of a bank of cabinets. I felt water at my feet and I looked down to realize that there was a good inch and a half of water along the floor of the buried bus. I guess one drawback to burying something in marshy land is that marshy land tends to be pretty wet.
My first thought was that it was some kind of shelter, a hastily constructed retreat that someo
ne came up with when they found out the comet was coming. But it was too hasty for that, as if they’d just thrown an empty school bus into a pit and thrown some dirt over it. I wasn’t even sure there was proper ventilation down there.
I opened one of the cabinets and I saw thick plastic bags of what looked like ice chips, or even crushed up icicles. I’d never seen that stuff before, but I knew what it was. And I knew there had to be some kind of ventilation in that buried bus if they were cooking meth in there.
There were at least twenty bags, each one weighing at least a pound. I checked the next cabinet over and found around a dozen more. The next cabinet had what looked like the cooking supplies, a full-on chemistry set along with various boxes and bottles. I checked the next cabinet over and found some burners and a few bags of President’s Choice potato chips. The last cabinet had more plastic bags, but those held little yellow pills with embedded maple leafs. I had no idea there were people who cooked both meth and ecstasy, but then again I didn’t know people generally buried their drug labs in a marshy pit in northern Ontario.
I’d found what probably amounts to millions of dollars in illicit drugs, more the meth than the MDMA, since you can get some not-too-trippy government-issue ecstasy for cheap with a phony prescription. Well, I guess you can’t get any of it now, since things like that disappeared from every pharmacy, clinic and hospital in the district long ago. So all of it’s valuable now, not that drug dealing is part of my life plan.
But we’re scavengers now, and when you find something that has value, you take it with you. You don’t just throw it away.
I grabbed a bag of each, just in case I decided on any show and tell, and I climbed out of the buried school bus and back up to the noxious pond. I took off the mare’s halter and headed back to the cottage, her saddlebag carrying enough dope to cause some serious trouble.
I’m not sure if there’s a way to make that trouble work for me.
After The Fires Went Out: Coyote (Book One of the Post-Apocalyptic Adventure Series) Page 9