by Connor Mccoy
It was while he was trying to decide if he should bring more than one roll of fiberglass cast that the banging started. He shot a startled look at Roger.
“Stay here,” Roger said. “I’m going to lock you in.”
“My bike…” Melvin began, but Roger cut him off.
“I’ll deal with it,” he said and closed the door, locking Melvin in.
Melvin knew he could get out if he really needed to do so. There were actually two exits, one through the door they’d come in through, and the other a garbage chute where the detritus of boat repair used to be dumped. It spilled out into a ditch beneath the building, and if need be, he could crawl out from underneath on his hands and knees. He supposed it still was oily and gross, but if he had to, he could do it.
“I don’t know why you’ve bothered to come back,” Roger was saying from above. The floor didn’t muffle the conversation much at all. “You raided me a few nights ago, and we haven’t had a shipment, I’ve nothing more to give you.”
“Whose bike is this?” an angry voice asked. “Doesn’t it belong to Melvin Foles?”
“Yeah, but he’s not here. He had a flat last time he was down here, ran over a screw in the yard. I fixed it for him. He’ll have to walk down here to get it, or catch a ride somehow,” Roger said. “Or just steal another bicycle, I suppose.”
Melvin could tell Roger was nervous, there was an almost imperceptible tremor in his voice that Melvin hoped the Cut Court’s thug couldn’t hear. But that was unrealistic. The court only hired men whose instincts were finely tuned. And while Roger could be nervous about any number of things, including there being a gun trained on him, Melvin couldn’t wait to see how this turned out. If it went badly, he needed to be long gone.
“I want to search,” the thug was saying.
Melvin already was turning away when he heard Roger consent to the search. He needed to be out of here, just in case. He walked swiftly and silently to that hatch in the floor. It was located in the center of the main drydock, the cement slab sloping toward it.
He unlatched the grate that covered the chute and lifted it. The aperture was just large enough for him to slide through on the diagonal. He gathered his supplies, dumping two backpacks and two grocery bags through the hole. Then he latched his fingers through the inside of the grate, jammed his feet against opposite sides of the metal duct, and attempted to close the grill silently.
He wasn’t successful, of course, but the ensuing thud was quieter than he had anticipated. He released his grip on both the grate and the metal tube and slid about fifteen feet, landing on his supplies. There wasn’t much that could be broken, but the things that could were critical and he hoped he’d packed them well enough to survive the impact. He buckled the backpacks together and tied the grocery bags to one of the ties, then he slid one of the shoulder straps through the belt that held up his jeans and began crawling.
The space between the bottom of the ditch and the floor of the building above him wasn’t quite tall enough for him to crawl on his hands and knees. He tried a kind of crouching crawl, but it was uncomfortable and not very efficient, so he switched to dragging himself along by his elbows while pushing himself forward with his toes. It was faster than it sounds and a few minutes later he emerged out from under the back side of the building and slid down a small hill, catching himself at the edge of the stream.
He didn’t dare check to see if his bicycle was being guarded, although he dreaded the long march home. He carried his bags across the stream and up the other side of the bank, coming out on the road he’d ridden in on. Melvin looked at his watch, an old Timex wind-up he’d found in an abandoned apartment, and gave himself five minutes on the road. After that, he’d make his way through the brush of the greenbelt, and the backyards of the houses lining the street near the town.
He’d been walking for three minutes when he heard the gunshots. He hoped fervently that Roger had not been killed. He wanted to go back to check on him, but that would be foolish. Melvin stood resolute in the middle of the road for another thirty seconds before he heard a vehicle. He threw himself into the brush and lay with the odor of decaying leaves under his nose until the car had passed.
He swore under his breath, stashed his bags where he could find them again and ran down the road back to the warehouse. He barely noticed his bicycle lying mangled in the parking lot as he made his way to the door. It had been left open. He called Roger’s name and heard a sound at the far end of the big room.
He found Roger near the secret entrance to their warehouse, blood oozing from his chest. He was appalled and angry that they would kill this man because they couldn’t find the one they really wanted. He wanted to scream, but he kept his voice light.
“Had to be the hero, did you?” he said, rolling his jacket and placing it under Roger’s head.
Roger smiled wanly. “You know me, never learned to keep my mouth shut when a good put-down comes to mind. Am I dead?”
“I’m afraid so. To tell you the truth I’m surprised you’re still talking. You always were a stubborn bastard.” Melvin pulled off his long sleeve shirt and then his T-shirt, wadding it up and pressing it into the wound.
“Don’t bother with that,” Roger said, “it’s a waste of resources.” He huffed out a weak laugh.
“The world is not short of T-shirts,” Melvin countered. “Shut up. No, I take that back, don’t shut up. Tell me what I need to know to keep this going.” He glanced around the building.
“First, move. You need a new location,” Roger wheezed. “Second, find out what fool is ratting us out to the Court and shoot him. Get your own van so you can’t be ratted out. Or a boat, just some way to move stuff, so you aren’t reliant on assholes. And put a hole in the bastard who killed me.” He gave Melvin a tremulous smile. “I thought I might live a little longer than this.”
“Don’t worry,” Melvin said, doing his best to keep his sorrow and rage from his voice and face. He did so want Roger’s passing to be peaceful. “I’ll kill the murdering bastards and the murdering bastards’ boss. You will be avenged.”
Roger nodded. A look of satisfaction crossed his face, and the smile appeared again. Then his eyes closed for the last time and he stopped breathing. Melvin sat with Roger a few minutes more. He had vague ideas of it taking a few minutes for the spirit to pass. Only when he thought he saw a shift in Rogers body, a kind of deflation, did he get up.
He walked to the other end of the building and screamed “Fuck!” as loudly as he could, over and over, until his voice wore out. Then he went in search of a shovel.
He dug the grave in the softer soil on the other side of the stream. He wasn’t used to shoveling, and it wasn’t long before his back and shoulders were aching. The constant burn in his biceps helped to keep his mind off his rage and on the sanctity of the burial. He was not a barbarian.
If he had been, he would have tossed Roger’s body into the river and let it go where it may. Dawn was breaking when he carried Roger’s body across the stream and laid him in the grave. When Roger was arranged with as much dignity as an Egyptian Pharaoh, with small flat stones over his eyes, Melvin climbed out of the grave. He said a short prayer in the early morning chill and began shoveling dirt back into the grave. It was mid-morning when he finished.
He walked up the street in full sunlight knowing that if he didn’t clear out the medical supplies soon, someone would find them and clean him out. Roger had been the deterrent, his watchman, and he could act like a crazy-man so convincingly that people liked to try their luck elsewhere after dealing with his banshee yells. Roger would be missed in so many ways. Where would he find another person he could trust?
Chapter Twelve
Melvin was not in the apartment when Glen arose the next morning, and he didn’t know if he should be worried. Maybe Melvin didn’t come home every morning. He’d said he was going for supplies, maybe it took longer than a night to get there and back again. Not knowing if he should worry, he decided
not to do so. One way or the other, he eventually would know, and until then worrying was a waste of energy.
He busied himself in the kitchen, making breakfast out of the oatmeal, some dried apples, and a cinnamon stick he found in the back of the cupboard. He found some instant coffee and heated water for that as well. The range was fueled by propane, and while the supply to the building long had been exhausted, there was a small, outdoor grill-sized tank hooked up. The oven controls were electronic, and Glen didn’t know how to bypass that hurdle but, if push came to shove, if they wanted to bake something, they could do that on the range top too.
The oatmeal just was starting to smell good when Mia came shuffling out of the hallway, running her hands through her hair. Her eyes were swollen, puffy really, and he thought she had been crying. Well, who could blame her? He’d cry too if he came home to find everyone gone, but all their possessions still right where they’d left them. It had to be a terrible shock.
“Where’s Melvin?” she asked, looking around. “Hasn’t he gotten back yet?”
“I haven’t seen him,” Glen said. “But he could have come back and gone out again. I don’t know what his life pattern is like.”
“Should we be worried?” she asked, lifting the lid and sniffing the oatmeal in the pot.
“I wouldn’t bother worrying. We’ll wait, see what turns up, and then deal with that reality. There really is no point in worrying.” And he believed that, but he couldn’t shut down the nagging feeling in the back of his mind that he should be doing something.
Initially, Glen’s plans for the day were to go back to the library and treat the sick and injured, and when Christian and Sally shuffled in, sniffing the air, he said as much. “As soon as you all are ready to go, we’ll go,” he added.
“So, we’re going to treat people on the steps of the library?” Sally asked. “How long do you think until someone runs us off?”
“She has a point,” Christian said through a mouthful of oats. “Eventually, someone will take offense. They always do. A petty bureaucrat will come along and ask for our permit, confiscate everything, and fine us. We should avoid that if we can.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Mia reproached him. She looked around. “Could we run a clinic out of here, do you think?”
“No,” Glen said. “I don’t like this as the location. The other people in the building might object, and there’d be people in the back courtyard day and night. We need an abandoned building. I’ll ask Melvin about that when he gets back.”
“What?” Sally looked up in alarm, “Melvin’s not back?”
“We aren’t worrying,” Mia told her. “Who knows what kind of schedule he keeps.”
Sally nodded but didn’t look happy. She tapped her spoon on the polished dark wood table and bit her lip.
“With the right facility,” Mia said, “we could set up a small surgery room. Although, sterilization might be an issue. Is there a shortage of bleach, do you think?”
“Anesthetic, or rather the lack of it, would be the greater deterrent,” Glen said. “Unless you propose we knock them over the head whenever they seem to be regaining consciousness.”
“People would flock to us,” Christian said drily. “Come have your broken bones set, and get a concussion for free. I think we might have more of an issue with those doctors in the upper floors of the hospital. If we start treating people for free – or at least at rates that normal people can afford – they might take exception.”
“I don’t know why,” Sally said. “It’s not like we’d be poaching any of their patients.”
“No, but their patients might start protesting at being charged so much when poor people are getting treated for free,” Glen said. He also thought it likely that whoever was in charge of the doctors wouldn’t like their monopoly to be challenged. There would be plenty of challenges, not the least of which would be the number of people with conditions that had gone untreated for a very long time.
“Maybe there’s an abandoned medical clinic we could set up in,” Mia said. “We could scavenge equipment from the lower floors of the hospitals. If there is anything left to be scavenged. Do you think everything, everywhere is already long gone?” She looked worried.
“Don’t know,” Christian said, “but I bet Melvin knows. You could ask him, or go look for yourself. We might fare better in a dental office. I think people avoid dental offices, but they’d have pretty good equipment. And are probably pretty easy to sterilize.”
“I’m almost convinced it would be easier to set up in an empty room. It would be easier to sterilize than a room with a bunch of equipment to work around.” Glen said. “But wherever it is, it should be close to the community that it serves. Preferably, right in the middle of it.”
“Maybe there are rooms in the basement of the library?” Sally said. “That would be convenient.”
“Let’s not inhabit a basement,” Mia said. “Surely some rooms let in lots of nice natural light. Working by glow sick and candlelight is not my idea of a good time.”
“Nor mine,” Glen said. “I agree with lots of natural light. Although in this city it seems to be dark everywhere, all the time.”
“Maybe at the top of one of the tall buildings?” Christian, and then answered himself. “No, because people would have to walk up all those flights of stairs. Maybe we’ll have to use mirrors to increase the light.”
“Or find a generator and a source of fuel,” Mia said.
“A waterwheel could generate electricity,” Sally said. “Somewhere on the river?”
“Let’s wait and ask Melvin what he thinks,” Glen said, secretly hoping the man hadn’t met with misadventure.
Not long after their breakfast conversation, they left the apartment for the shallow library steps, skirting through the back alley and out onto the street. They expected at least a few people to be waiting for them in the courtyard in front of the library, at the very least those whom they had treated and told to come back. But when they reached the library, the line of waiting patients snaked around the stalls in the market, down the block, and around the corner.
“At least we won’t feel un-needed,” Sally said.
“Or bored,” Christian added.
“Or like we can take even a moment for ourselves to go pee,” Mia groaned.
But Glen felt something akin to happiness and smiled. “Let’s get to work,” he said.
It took Melvin seven hours to walk back to the city. He carried one backpack on his back and the other on his front, the bags of soup bumping against his thighs. It was frustrating to have to travel so slowly, but not only did he have the weight of the backpacks he also had to stay out of sight. A single man carrying a load of gear was a target. Once, in the past, he’d been set upon by a group of preteens. They’d ripped his bundles away from him, and it was only the appearance of one of their parents that kept him from being beaten to death. Now he merely remained unseen.
Only it wasn’t that simple. The most direct route was back along the freeway. The benefits of that were you could see people coming, but that also meant they could see you. He scanned for high places where lookouts could be waiting, trying to determine early if he needed to get undercover.
For a while, he walked in the ditch between the north and south lanes. He couldn’t be seen by the casual observer, but if there was a lookout on an overpass, it was likely he would be trapped with no viable means of escape. So, he did his best to dart from vehicle to vehicle, hiding behind stranded cars and trucks. The buses were the best because they sat low, but their windows were high, and he could walk beside them without crouching and also without fear of being seen. It was tiring, this constant need to scout for an escape route or place to hide. His back and thighs ached from stooping over as he tried to remain hidden behind the vehicles.
When he reached the outskirts of the city, he began looking for another bicycle. He didn’t like the odds that he would make it home carrying these goods on foot. But it
wasn’t easy to find transportation, a bicycle lock being a simple mechanism unaffected by the EMP, which you couldn’t break without specialized tools.
He did eventually spot an abandoned bike in a junk pile. It was far too small for him and had a 1970s banana seat, ridiculous and uncomfortable, but it was faster than walking and would give him a little maneuverability. One of the tires was mostly flat, but he shrugged and rode it anyway. What did it matter if he ruined the rim? It’s only job was keeping him alive this one night.
In the back of his mind Melvin knew the bike might not make it all the way back to his neighborhood. So, he kept his eyes open for a replacement, while also scanning to make sure he wasn’t trapped by a gang of marauders. About five blocks later the tire came off the rim. He tried to keep riding but the tireless wheel didn’t handle well, making it practically impossible to steer and he had to abandon it.
It wasn’t long after that that his fears materialized. As he walked down the center of the street, two young men stepped into his line of sight. They were half a block in front of him, and when he glanced behind there were two more young men not far behind. He glanced frantically up and down the street, looking for an escape. An open building, an alleyway, somewhere they would have to run single file. If he could get there first, there might be a chance.
All the while he was looking, more and more black-clad gang members joined the others in front of and behind him. He thought he saw a break between buildings on his right, so he started moving left in what he hoped was a diversionary tactic. He was just about to make a mad dash across the street and into the alley when he heard a sound to his left.
A quick glance showed him a metal gate with a woman standing behind it, and he hesitated.
“Come in here,” she said. “Quickly, or they’ll catch you.”
He only had a moment to make up his mind, and he knew it could be a trap, but again it was a narrow space, and he’d just have to get past one person before he legged it out of there.