Jaz pursed her lips, trying to show just the right amount of sympathy. Then she said, “You’re doing better than Mastersonville. The flood of people came down Highway 283 and brought something with them. The little village was doing all right, holding off the hordes, until everyone started to get sick. Most of them died, as did the refugees. Now there’s a few thousand rotting corpses there, and nothing else. Anyone who survived fled to places like this and Elizabethtown.”
“Our scouts have been to both those places. Elizabethtown is where we heard of the Clan, but we weren’t able to send anyone out to contact you before winter hit. We needed everyone we had, for a while, fending off the horde. It was heartbreaking sometimes, all those desperate, people with their hollow-eyed starving children. Same story here as at Mastersonville when the disease hit except that here, after the old mayor shot himself, someone had to step up. So I did, setting up quarantine zones and organizing our supplies. We had to kill or drive off anyone who tried to hoard or wasn’t with the program, because we all needed those supplies to survive. Almost everyone pitched in, thank God.” He paused, frowning at some memory, then almost visibly came back to them. “That’s when we started work on our wall. It was a huge undertaking but worth every man-hour we spent on it.”
Jaz saw something like sorrow flash across the mayor’s face at the mention of killing or driving out hoarders. It was startling at first but she hadn’t been here. She’d learned the hard way that tough times need tough people and organized action to survive. Well, the mayor probably needed to hear one of the envoys say so, so she spoke up.
“I don’t know if I might have done the same with the hoarders if I was in your situation, but it looks like you were the right choice to take over. Our own leader, Cassy, says that if you don’t do the necessary when you see it, you’re likely to pay hard penalties.”
“Maybe,” the mayor replied. “I’d rather be chilling at the sports bar drinking beer and eating nachos, but someone had to get things going or we’d have all died by now. We’re better off than Mastersonville, yeah, but we’re also better off than New York, so I think we’re doing better than most, actually. Maybe we can learn from the Clan and share a few things we’ve learned by living through this mess.”
Choony perked up at the mention of the City and seemed pretty excited, surprising Jaz. Choony didn’t get excited about anything, as far as she knew. He was the calmest man she’d ever met.
“You have word from the City?” Choony blurted. “You have to tell me what you know—is anyone left alive? Are they still under the invaders, like rumor says? I have family there. Not my parents, they’re in Scranton, but a lot of aunts and uncles and such.”
The mayor clenched his jaw, but nodded. “Alright. The truth, then. A lot of this is just pieced together, but figure twenty-five million people to begin with. A minimum of two-point-five million dead from diseases, both because of weakened immune systems and because of millions of bodies lying around. That’s just for starters.”
Choony’s shoulders tensed. “Why is that the minimum? That’s ten percent of what it started with.”
“We talk to people from New York who pass through, and traveling merchants. Ten percent seems to be the average number everywhere, and a city as dense as New York has to be even worse, but we wanted to be conservative.”
Choony took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Thank you for letting me rudely interrupt.”
“It’s quite all right, mister Choony. Anyway… Figure another million died from injuries, lack of medicine, the crazy neighbor with a shotgun, and so on. Again, that’s about the average, from what we’ve learned. And then, some of the traders we’ve allowed in from the east say that about five million New Yorkers are enslaved by the gangs and by invaders camped out in the north end of the city. Can you believe that? Five million slaves…”
Jaz shuddered involuntarily and had to focus on slowing her breathing as vivid scenes of her own time enslaved to Jim, during the White Stag occupation, played through her mind.
The mayor paused, took sips of water, and when Jaz had regained her composure he continued without commenting. “So you have about seventeen-point-five million left. Each of them needs about seven hundred fifty calories per day to survive. That’s thirteen billion calories daily, even after they used up what food was in the city when the EMPs hit.
“A human body averages about one hundred fifty pounds, half of it edible. Seventy-five pounds each. A pound of meat has twelve hundred calories, so one body has ninety-thousand calories on average. The daily calorie requirement divided by ninety-thousand is how many people must be eaten per day if there are no other food sources. We’re told cannibalism has become common in the largest cities.”
“That’s one hundred forty-five thousand people,” Choony muttered, jaw hanging and eyes wide.
“Per day, yes. Unimaginable. There’s fewer people each day, so fewer must be eaten each day, it’s on a decreasing curve. And there was some food in the beginning at stores and in people’s houses. So we ran the numbers the whole way through, every day.”
Jaz froze. She had not thought about this so methodically before. It made her heart hurt and that feeling was super uncomfy so she squashed it down, using her old street-kid survival trick, and didn’t reply. Instead, she looked up at the vaulted ceiling and tuned everything out. Choony had a handle on this situation, he didn’t need her for this. Not yet. But try as she might, the horrid conversation kept getting through her defenses. She wanted to scream.
Choony shifted uncomfortably in his seat and was silent for a moment. Finally, he said, “How many have been eaten, and how many people remain in New York City, do you think?”
“We compiled the numbers. I can only hope the New York numbers aren’t on par with everywhere else, or maybe we made a mistake in our calculations. I pray to God that it’s the latter, because if these numbers are right…”
Jaz couldn’t take it. She had to get the conversation to stop, and the best way to do that was demand the answer Choony wanted. No matter how disgusting the answer, it would at least get this over with. “What are the numbers?” she demanded, as tears formed at the corners of her eyes.
“Eleven million people have died and most have been eaten by others in New York. Six-and-a-half million people are still alive. That’s the best we could estimate. I doubt we’ll ever know the real numbers, and I’m not sure it even matters now. However you look at it, it’s been worse than the Black Plague was in Europe.”
Jaz cried out, “How can you say it doesn’t matter? What the hell is wrong with you?” Her hands shook. The bastard didn’t give a shit about those people. How could that be? This mayor was a monster.
The mayor flinched but kept his voice even, as if he understood her emotional response. “The disgusting, sad truth is that cities can’t raise much of their own food, especially not now that the infrastructure is destroyed. They can’t even get city water. It would have taken a government-level effort and government-level resources to change city society that dramatically and nobody wanted to… Almost all of the people who still live in urban areas will eventually die now. Nor can they just escape. Just like us, with the flood of people fleeing from Harrisburg and Hershey, people in the areas around the cities will kill to protect what little they have left. It’s already too late for the refugees. By the start of summer, there will be under two million left in New York. By this time next year, accounting for harvesting whatever they could by farming in the parks and such—more a question of finding seeds than farmable space, by then—we estimate only three hundred thousand will be left alive and they’ll have eaten more than seventeen million of their neighbors. That’s best-case.”
Jaz felt something crack inside her. The thin veneer of armor she’d built up couldn’t withstand the tragedy of what she’d just heard. She once had hope for her relatives and few friends, who all lived in cities just as she had. She’d hoped they could find a way to survive. And that hope had jus
t been snuffed out. But unlike most people, who fall apart when the armor is cracked, Jaz didn’t collapse. Instead, the coldness and apathy that had allowed her to survive life on the streets before the war flooded back into her, washed over her, and drowned the young woman she was becoming. At least for now, she needed those thick walls she’d thought were gone between her heart and her mind, or she’d come apart at the seams.
Choony looked at Jaz with concern, but so what? Getting close to him would only bring them both pain. There was no point, and she’d never let herself be that vulnerable again, she swore to herself.
Jaz’s voice was monotone and dull, lifeless, when she replied. “I have just realized that none of that is important for why we’re here, Mayor. People die, and will keep dying. So, let’s change the subject and, if we may, let’s just get down to business. You need food, and we need something a bit unusual from you. I think we can work out a deal that meets both of our needs.”
The mayor looked startled at her change in tone. Well, she couldn’t help that.
* * *
In the vacant hotel room they’d been given, Jaz drummed her fingers on the desk in frustration and clicked the radio button once again, though it would use some of their currently irreplaceable battery power. “Charlie One, Charlie One. This is Sam Two. Over.”
It took a couple more tries before the radio finally showed signs of life—Ethan’s voice said, “Sam Two, this is Charlie Two. Go ahead.”
“We visited Aunt Lisa’s place, and all seems well. She’s a very practical woman, and she hears a lot of gossip from back east. I’ll tell you all about that when we come home. She and Aunt Florence are again nice and friendly with one another, judging by our talk, so it was a good visit. We still need to drop off our radio and pick up a horse at Aunt Florence’s on our way home. Over.”
“Sam Two, I copy. Good job with Aunt Florence and Aunt Lisa. Stand by for update.”
Jaz rolled her eyes, frustrated. It was Choony’s idea that she should be familiar with working the Clan’s larger, long-distance radio gear, but she didn’t care for it at all. It was tedious, and it made her voice sound like Darth Vader. Nonetheless, he had a pretty good point, so she did her best not to complain.
A minute later, the radio crackled to life again. They went through the identity confirmation routine, and then Ethan asked whether they could speak openly. That was a terrible idea even if no one was eavesdropping here, because anyone could monitor the airwaves. But she confirmed that, on her end at least, no one else was nearby and listening.
“Sam Two, very well. You aren’t going to like this. We have recent reports from friends that this entire region is lousy with squirrels,” Ethan said, referring to invaders. “From north of you to south of us, small groups of squirrels are raiding the smaller trees and taking nuts from wherever they can. The weather is getting too bad for travel right now, Sam Two. You’ll need to stay at Aunt Lisa’s until the weather changes. How copy?”
Well, that was messed up. Invaders all over the place, maybe raiding compounds like the Clan’s, and Cassy wanted her to sit here safe behind Lebanon’s high walls? She looked over her shoulder at Choony. “No way. We can’t abandon our people, right?” Of course Choony would understand! He just had to…
“Things are what they are, Jaz,” Choony replied thoughtfully. “I think we should follow instructions, because we don’t do any good to the Clan if we’re dead, or worse, captured. And what if the invaders got hold of our radio? They’d know not only that there are working radios out here, but they could monitor Clan traffic for at least a couple days, maybe more, before our people realized we were gone and switched channels.”
Jaz could recognize truth when she heard it, even if she didn’t like it. “And changing channels would mean sending riders out to all our allies to tell them about the updated protocols. I totally get it, but Choony—I’m still not staying here. We can smash the radio before we get taken, or better yet, you stay here with the radio to keep it safe, and I’ll head back. With ’vaders all over, the Clan will be on double watch, double scouting rotations. Every pair of hands will matter.”
Choony scrunched up his eyebrows and made the duck-face with his lips. He clearly hated the idea of her leaving. That sucked, but it wouldn’t stop Jaz from making her choice. She’d felt the wall go back up but that didn’t mean she couldn’t stand by her principles. She hoped Choony would stay behind with the radio and be safe, even though she’d totally miss his company. But he was right about keeping the radio safe. Plus he wouldn’t fight, so he wouldn’t be much use in a fight anyway unless the ’vaders attacked Clanholme in earnest. But she respected his scouting ability, and would likely miss that long before she got back to the Clan.
After taking thought, Choony replied, “Very well, Jaz. You go back to Clanholme, but I’m coming with you. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you out there.”
Jaz hadn’t thought of that. Maybe that was why Choony had looked so upset—not the radio, but her. She had mixed feelings about that. Okay, if she was honest, she liked that he cared about her. It was nice having a friend around who cared about people the way Choony did. “I can’t stop you,” she mumbled, unable to meet his gaze.
She picked up the radio handset. “Charlie Two, Charlie Two, this is Sam Two. Please advise Charlie One that we’ll be home for the New Year’s party. Wouldn’t miss it. Sam Two out.”
Before Ethan could respond, she reached out and turned the radio off. “Alright then, Choony. I guess it’s time for another trip. I hope it doesn’t turn into another Hell Ride.”
- 8 -
1600 HOURS - ZERO DAY +147
CASSY WALKED WITH Michael toward the north Food Forest zone. He had said an attack would most likely come from the north, so now they were double-checking their lines of fire and their traps and adding some new traps where needed. Of course, he said the same about the White Stag invasion, yet their successful second attack had come from the south end.
“Yeah, but Cassy, they were amateurs. They got lucky, that’s all. Luck matters more in battle than you’d think. Well, you’ve seen combat now. You know that. But the invaders are at least trained, so unless they’re veteran or worse, elite, they’ll follow a checklist. They’re predictable.”
“And if they’re Rabs?” Cassy asked, using the word they picked up somewhere for the Arabic radicals who joined Korea and China for the invasion of America. “They’re basically terrorists turned loose with limited oversight by their North Korean ‘advisors,’ right?”
Michael nodded. He bent down and buried one of their shotgun shell traps. “That’s true, which is why we’ll tighten up our defense of the south approach this time. Our Marines will spend the day emplacing a couple hundred traps along the far side of the hill and we’ve already added some sandbagged bunkers up there at the crest, scattered among the animal pens.”
“They’re not the only threat,” Cassy said, adding, “Those scouts our people ran across? They were from the Empire out of Fort Wayne. Americans, not ’vaders. Any progress on your questioning?”
Cassy suppressed a shudder. She didn’t like Michael’s methods and knew Michael didn’t either, but they seemed necessary in this new, more brutal world they lived in. Unlike the first time, just before the White Stag invasion, she was giving Michael her full support this time around. She had changed since the EMPs hit, as they all had, and though she didn’t want the leadership role thrust upon her by circumstance, she was determined to carry out her duty as best she could. The vicious treatment Peter Ixin and his sadistic enforcer Jim had given her and the rest of the Clan during his brief occupation of Clanholme had hardened her, she knew. It had been a hard lesson for all the Clan’s survivors.
“Some progress,” Michael said. “We’ve relayed whatever intel I could entrust to Ethan to update his map, and he’ll brief us all when time permits. He’s kind of busy right now, like all of us. The scout questioning continues under Mueller even now, I’m af
raid. We can’t afford to give her time to recover her strength.”
Cassy tied off a trap she had hung from an overhead branch, a coffee can full of glass, nails, small glass vials of precious gasoline, and Tannerite—an explosive that was easy to make out of ammonium nitrate and a bit of aluminum powder. It might damage the food forest if it got triggered, but it would certainly ruin the day of any attackers who tripped the wire. “So, are you sure the glass bottles will work?”
“Nope. I know the Tannerite we made will work and so will the shrapnel mine we put it in, but the explosion may or may not break the glass vials. I’m guessing it will, though. I need to ask Ethan how to make something like napalm, but I haven’t had time. He’s an evil genius with that sort of thing. Choony might be better, if his heart were in it, but you know.”
Cassy grinned at the thought of the Clan’s resident nerd as evil genius and pulled back some winter-killed ground cover to put in another shotgun shell trap as she replied, “He’s a conspiracy theorist, you know? Can’t believe those wackos. Nuts, all of them.” That had become something of a running gag around the Clan since the second EMP round had been launched by Americans. It was Ethan who discovered the EMP retaliation was the work of a ruthless Army general in a bid for personal power.
For the Clan, the joke served two purposes. First, it kept people aware that sometimes the nutjobs are right. Second, it reminded everyone that Ethan was important, valuable—he had earned his place on the Council many times over and he knew things no one else did. Since he wasn’t around to be seen that often, it helped him to stay integrated with the Clan and be seen as relevant when he did emerge from his ‘cave.’ People no longer snickered at the things he said, once reminded how often he had been proven right.
Michael smirked at the gag but said nothing more, and over the next two hours they finished planting dozens of new traps. They had also replaced some old traps that weren’t in great shape anymore. When they finished, they headed toward the east retaining pond and guard tower, and started the process all over again.
Dark New World (Book 4): EMP Backdraft Page 12