by LeMay, Jim
Mitch was right. Whatever future awaited the survivors was certain not to be a pleasant one. Perhaps not even a very long one. And maybe Mitch was thinking of those he’d lost. The survivors would retain that grief of loss as long as they lived.
Though questions crowded Matt’s mind, he was too weak to stay awake much longer. After he finished eating, he sank back on the bed breathing heavily and was soon buried in a deep sleep.
Matt’s strength began to return over the next few days, but at an alarmingly slow rate. He was terribly dehydrated, and Mitch encouraged him to drink a lot of water. They fed him soup the next day and increasingly heavier foods thereafter. He was appalled at his weight loss. He’d always been too thin as it was.
Mitch introduced him to the others the next morning. Johnson and two others, Dodd and Downing, had been Army Rangers in the same unit, stationed at nearby Fort Leonard Wood. Their training had prepared them to counter urban terrorism with a foreign threat in mind, but no one envisioned a threat such as Chou’s Disease. It wasn’t clear why the three were here at Lake of the Ozarks instead of Fort Leonard Wood or some nearby city (they told him that several local cites had imposed curfews enforced by the military while he was sick), but he thought it judicious not to ask. And he was never to find out.
Mitch had been an automobile mechanic. The house they were in was his. Lou Travis was a civil engineer from Kansas City who had taken sick while inspecting drainage structures associated with the Lake’s dam. After he recovered from Chou’s, he had wandered around looking for food until he had happened onto Mitch’s house.
“I’ve got to call my parents,” Matt said after the introductions. “My commcomp’s in the car.”
“I’ve got my mobile unit in the living room,” said Lou. “I’ll get it.”
After he had done so, Matt checked his messages. The first one was from his mother, from nearly a week before, asking after him, hoping he had reached his cabin all right. There followed several from friends and acquaintances in other parts of the country, some reporting deaths among families and friends. Then several more from his mother, quite concerned now that he hadn’t called. A few more messages followed, largely depressing.
Weak and tired though he was, he mustered the strength to call his parents. His mother answered, looking distraught. “Oh, Matt,” she said, “thank god you called. I’ve been so worried...” Then she hesitated, startled at his appearance. “What in the world’s wrong, darling? You look terrible.”
“I’ve been sick, Mom. Had Chou’s. But I’m over it.”
Later he realized that the ensuing conversation was the best he remembered having with his mother and that he felt closer to her than he ever had before. Her relief at his recovery was abject. She even cried, an odd thing to see, he thought, in one who seldom displayed genuine emotion. Maybe she really had motherly feelings toward him after all. Maybe she even loved him after a fashion.
He slept well that night.
The next day Lou and Mitch updated him on the latest world news. Things had gotten much worse during the few days Matt had been incapacitated. Not enough people now showed up at their jobs to maintain the necessary services. The postal service had been the first to go although it was one of the least important since it had largely been replaced by electronic mail. Utility brownouts or blackouts were common in most areas of the country, crime was rampant and food riots were becoming common. Police and fire protection had virtually evaporated along with all other governmental services. Most financial institutions were now extinct, but money was worthless in most places anyhow. (So much for Matt’s savings!) Little news came from the coasts where anarchy seemed to prevail, and almost nothing was heard from overseas.
Chou’s Disease wasn’t the only health risk. As drinking water became polluted, water-borne diseases such as dysentery and cholera increased. Tuberculosis, once thought to be almost extinct, was spreading. There were epidemics of yellow fever. Ironically, wealthier people succumbed to disease more readily than the underclasses. The cocktails of preventive drugs tailored to their genomes that had kept them healthy also weakened their immune systems. Their sources for these drugs had suddenly disappeared, allowing their patient microscopic enemies to take their toll. As the food supply dwindled, starvation increased, especially in the cities. Hunger lowered people’s resistance to other diseases. Finally, starving mobs from the cities ravaged the relatively quiet countrysides, spreading the Chou bacteria as they plundered. Their exodus from the cities was encouraged by fires, which raged unchecked in the absence of fire protection.
* * * *
It was nearly a week before he could get up and around and several weeks before he could get through a whole day without at least one nap. He couldn’t help thinking of those Chou’s survivors who had come to their senses alone and who had died anyway because they had no one to care for them. His survival would have been questionable without these men’s help.
He talked to his mother once again, but the closeness was less apparent. She seemed distant and distracted. His dad talked to him briefly, perfunctorily. He called Terence once, only to find that his service had been discontinued. He didn’t know exactly what that meant; Terence could either be dead or too preoccupied with survival to take the time to use the machine. It struck him that Terence had not once mentioned his wife who had helped to raise Mercy. He had no more idea if they were still together than he did if they still lived. Gradually, he quit calling other acquaintances. Their inevitable increasingly bad news depressed him. It was even worse when they no longer answered. It was time to end those relationships now – when they didn’t hear from him they would assume that he too had died – and to prepare for whatever new life lay ahead.
His possessions, which his benefactors had brought into the house from the car, were intact except for the food, which Johnson explained he had appropriated as payment for saving him. He didn’t mind that, especially since he was now eating their food. Sometimes he wouldn’t see the gang members for days at a time, except for whoever was selected to guard the house, as they went about their tasks. Fortunately, none of the roaming ravenous mobs ever showed up, though that was perhaps because of their remote location.
On his walks near the house to regain his strength, he noticed three graves in the back yard. He assumed these belonged to members of Mitch’s family who had succumbed to Chou’s since Mitch quietly visited them when he thought no one noticed. Years later Mitch verified that they were the graves of his wife and two little daughters.
It was also in later times that Lou confided to Matt that he never got to see his wife and son again. He learned much later that they had died in a house fire resulting from a riot in Kansas City while he lay incapacitated with Chou’s in his motel room at Lake of the Ozarks. Like Matt he had chosen to forego medical attention, convinced that he wouldn’t survive.
At the end of the fourth week of his convalescence, Matt received a call from his dad, surprising since his mother usually instigated the calls. His demeanor was grave.
His mother had just died of Chou’s. She hadn’t wanted him to know when she got sick. She had only lived two days so she didn’t suffer long. Susan Clark, one of their houseguests, had died two weeks before so their escape from the city to avoid death hadn’t worked. His father didn’t stay on the line long, afraid of breaking down, Matt supposed. Neither of his parents ever liked showing emotions not compatible with advancing their careers. Even to their son.
Matt never heard from his father again. He called him once, but his dad didn’t respond. Matt never knew if he succumbed to Chou’s soon after his mother or to some other disease or if he just didn’t care to answer.
He soon quit giving a shit one way or the other.
* * * *
When the men were all at the house, they took their meals together of course. One evening after dinner, Johnson told Matt that he and the others had formed a business, the purpose of which was to acquire goods from abandoned farms and towns to
sell to those who needed them. The company would thereby not only make a living but provide mutual protection for its participants. Johnson stressed that they only took items from sites that were clearly abandoned. The large number that had died or fled left many of these, and since there was no one around to inherit or buy them, anything of value on them was available for the taking. The work of Johnson and his men helped society as well as themselves.
Yeah, thought Matt, you guys are real philanthropic entrepreneurs. Why are you telling me this? What the hell are you up to? He soon found out.
“We’d like t’ recruit y’,” Johnson told him. “We need good men and you seem like a smart guy. One benefit a joinin’ us is that me an’ Dodd an’ Downing has all been trained t’ fight in these modern wars where there ain’t no battle lines no more. We can live off the land for months, even years if we have t’. An’ we can take care a anybody that tries t’ hassle us. Y’d git the benefit a that kind a pertection.”
He went on that way for awhile and ended by saying, “Don’t decide now. Y’r still under the weather. Think it over for a few days.”
“I’ll think about it,” Matt promised. He had already decided. He wasn’t about to join them. In the first place, they looked more like a gang of terrorists than businessmen, especially Johnson, Dodd, and Downing in their camouflaged fatigues. In the second, their jargon sounded too military. Johnson hadn’t asked Matt if he wanted to join them; he’d said he’d like to “recruit” him. He talked about “missions” and “strategy.” The non-military types, Mitch and Lou, had had nothing to say. Only Johnson, with a few short contributions from Dodd and Downing, had spoken. Besides all that, Matt was not a joiner to begin with. He didn’t like to follow. But then he didn’t like to lead either. He was a loner. His car was intact, with a good supply of power cells. He could leave anytime he wanted.
As it turned out, Matt never did give them a decision. But he never quite got around to leaving either. Johnson’s description of his, Dodd’s, and Downing’s expertise had not been idle boasting. Matt had no doubt these ruthless looking men could live up to their claims. It was difficult to leave such security in the terrifying reality the world had suddenly become.
Twelve years later he remained with the gang as it sought to elude Chadwick’s men.
Chapter Six
When Matt and Lou reached the basement, they found that the others had already returned. Doc and Stony had found a draw just west of town that was well concealed by acres of surrounding brush and trees. Not far from it bubbled a little spring that solved concerns about water. From a house just off the main street they’d scrounged some sheets that could be torn up for bandages and dressings and cooking equipment to replace some of what they’d lost. In the draw they had built a small but intense fire that produced little
Smoke – not a “white man’s fire” – and boiled water for sterilizing the dressings and Doc’s medical equipment. Doc had finished cleaning and treating each man’s wounds properly for the first time since the ambush.
Leighton and Miller had concealed what little evidence there was of the gang’s trail into town. Like Matt and Lou, they had also found truck in abandoned houses. Everybody thought Matt’s idea of questioning Wild Billy as to local markets was a good one. If they moved fast enough, they could still collect a respectable amount of truck and find a market by the end of harvest season. Things didn’t seem as desperate as they had the night before.
Until Mitch reminded them: “All this counts on us avoidin’ Chadwick’s guys.”
Mitch put Miller and Rossi on guard at the outposts first. He sent Matt and Lou along to show them exactly where the posts were and how they should occupy them. It had been decided that all gang members not standing guard should remain in the basement until Chadwick’s men had had a reasonable amount of time to discover the town. However, since nobody had any idea what constituted a “reasonable amount of time", how long they should stay hidden was still an unknown.
Inevitably, as they lay around on the cushions that afternoon in the dim dank basement, thoughts turned to the vicious attack by Chadwick’s men. Everyone had been quiet for some time when Kincaid spoke suddenly. “Who the hell is this Chadwick and why’s he out t’ git us?”
“I don’t know for sure why he’s out t’ git us,” said Mitch, “but if it’s for what I s’pect, it goes back a couple years. Wasn’t it the year before the young’ns joined us?” He looked at the older guys.
“Yeah,” said Lou, “it was three years ago this coming January when Chadwick tried to steal our truck, and the following Thanksgiving when we got his stash.”
The boys had heard a little about the theft of the stash, but no one had told them about Chadwick’s attempt to steal the gang’s truck.
Mitch retold the story for the younger guys’ benefit. Matt remembered the details Mitch left out.
* * * *
The two gangs, Johnson’s and Chadwick’s, (Mitch said) seldom had occasion to run into each other. They normally operated in different parts of the state, Johnson’s in the northeast and Chadwick’s in central Missouri. They even sold their truck and spent the off-season in different market settlements, Johnson’s gang in Nellie’s Fair near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and Chadwick’s in the remnants of the university town, Columbia. Each gang had heard of the other, of course, just as all the more prominent gangs knew of each other. Scroungers and others who made their living by traveling loved to gossip. News disseminated quickly over large areas.
Finally, three years ago the previous January, almost four years ago now, the gangs met. The winter being a mild one, each gang had decided to go trucking in January, normally an off-season. In Johnson’s gang only Matt didn’t go. Every winter he had a job assisting an accountant in Nellie’s Fair, and he had no desire to trade a guaranteed income for the discomforts of trucking in winter. A little time away from the others helped too.
Both gangs coincidentally went to an area they seldom visited, the Kansas City metropolitan area’s sprawling ruins in western Missouri. They met in its eastern suburbs. Each leader tried to intimidate the other into leaving through verbal sparring. Chadwick’s thirteen men outnumbered Johnson’s nine, but Johnson, flanked by Dodd and Downing, presented a more threatening array. Amazingly, Lou told Matt later, a conflict was somehow avoided. Johnson seldom turned down an opportunity for a fight, and his counterpart, Chadwick, seemed a man of like mind. They did this time, though, agreeing to divide the suburb between them.
However, a surprise awaited the Johnson gang as they left the ruins a couple of weeks later. The roadway they took led around a curve and through a cut. Felled trees obstructed the far end of the cut, too recently and purposely placed to have been there long. Johnson, who led, stopped when he saw the blockade, about a hundred yards distant, and motioned for quiet. Johnson nearly always led; his constant wary surveillance made him the gang’s best point man.
Almost immediately Chadwick and two men to his right appeared from behind the trees, guns leveled at Johnson’s chest. The rest of his gang appeared along the ridges above the cut, weapons bristling. Chadwick demanded that Johnson and his men lay their weapons down and surrender their mules.
Johnson laid his rifle carefully on the pavement, ordered his men to do the same, and stood up. He raised the arm that wasn’t holding his mule’s halter and conceded defeat. Then, arm remaining in the air, with long strides he led the mule toward Chadwick, praising Chadwick’s sagacity in outsmarting him with the ambush in his loud voice, even grinning and shaking his head at his own naiveté.
“C’mon, fellers,” he called over his shoulder. “Bring y’r mules up. These boys caught us with our pants down. This here truck’s theirs.” The men followed reluctantly. Lou admitted to Matt later that he was dumbfounded by their leader’s behavior.
Too late, Chadwick realized that Johnson had approached too closely. He bellowed for Johnson to stop where he was or die.
The mule was
between Johnson and Chadwick’s two men who stood to their boss’ right. In what appeared a single movement, Johnson forced the mule against Chadwick’s men and pushed Chadwick’s rifle barrel up so that it fired harmlessly into the heavens. This sudden maneuver surprised them all, including the mule, which further confused matters by kicking and rearing into Chadwick’s companions.
When all became suddenly quiet, except for the snorting bucking mule, Johnson was standing behind Chadwick holding his service knife at Chadwick’s jugular.
The tables, as the saying goes, were turned.
In a short time Johnson’s gang was on its way back to Nellie’s Fair, still in possession of its truck and mules and richer by the amount of weapons they had taken from Chadwick and his men. The others were ecstatic that Johnson had saved their truck and mules. He had accomplished it single-handedly! He got a lot of praise and back slaps.
He waved them off, saying, “I’m one of America’s best trained soldiers. I better be able t’ take care of a fuckin’ inbred hillbilly like Chadwick.”
And that should have been the end of it, Mitch told them. They returned to life as normal: went back to Nellie’s Fair, sold off the truck they’d acquired in Kansas City, and left for the regular trucking season the next spring. They returned to Nellie’s Fair that fall with an average load of truck.
The men with wives or lovers in Nellie’s Fair spent the nights with them and the days at the market selling their truck. Matt returned to a new love interest with whom he had spent the previous winter, Lily, whose former lover, Josh, also a scrounger, had been foolish enough to get caught cheating at cards and ended up in St. Charles Lake with his throat cut. Matt had no illusions about Lily’s fidelity – he’d known of her indiscretions while with Josh, had taken advantage of her lapses a time or two himself – but he didn’t want a long term commitment any more than she did.
Johnson never wintered with the rest of the gang in Nellie’s Fair but spent his winters in some hole-up with his wife and children, the location of which he mysteriously kept secret from the rest. He only stayed in Nellie’s Fair long enough to help dispose of the truck, divide the proceeds, party for a few nights with the men, and gossip with other gangs.