Alice shook her head, plainly frustrated at the state of things.
“It reminds me of this story,” Gary continued. “There was this bus full of ugly people and it crashed, killing everyone on board.”
“Seriously, Gary?” Debra said. “A bus full of ugly people?”
“Bear with me,” he said. “A bus full of ugly people, a wreck, and they all die. So they get to Heaven and Saint Peter meets them at the gate. He says he’ll give each of them one wish before they enter the gates of Heaven. The first is a woman and she tells Saint Peter that she wants to be beautiful. He grants her wish and she immediately becomes the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen.”
“Everyone else in the group sees how beautiful she becomes so all of the rest of them wish for the same thing, until Saint Peter gets to the last person in line. He’s laughing as he approaches Saint Peter and Saint Peter asks him what he wants for his wish. ‘Make them all ugly again,’ he says.”
Gary looked around the fire while everyone pondered the story.
“That’s an awful story,” Sara said, her eyebrows crinkling. “I don’t like it.”
“The point is that it only takes one jerk to screw things up for everyone,” Gary said. “It’s a parable. A lesson. There’s a moral.”
Debra rolled her eyes and placed a fresh marshmallow on Lana’s stick. “So what do we need to do to make this move happen?”
“It’s a major undertaking,” Gary conceded. “With the extra fuel I got, I think each family can take a car and try to pack as much of your personal stuff in there as you can. Take durable clothes and remember that the weather will get colder eventually. Take raincoats, gloves, hats, socks – everything you can. We can’t count on our stuff being here when we come back. Try to take warm clothes for everyone. It’s about durability, not looks. You won’t need high heels, black dresses, or a selection of purses. Leave all that. I’m going to try to pack all of the food and preparations into the big truck. If there’s any room left, we can fill it with more of your stuff, but don’t count on doing that. Between guns, tools, food, and gear, there may not be much room left.”
Alice stood abruptly. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’ve been having some stomach issues. Where are you all… doing your…business?”
No one responded quickly enough.
“I really need to know,” Alice said. “Soon.”
“Behind that storage building is a shower tent with a camping toilet in it,” Gary said, pointing. “Do you have a light?”
“I’ll be okay,” she said, trotting off quickly.
“That’s what can happen when you don’t filter your water,” Gary said. “She had to drink out of a ditch because she couldn’t find fresh water. Remember that. Explosive, projectile diarrhea – for weeks.”
*
After everyone headed off to bed that night, Gary retreated to his old office/junk room/gun room in a spare bedroom. He turned his Baofeng HAM radio on, put on some headphones, and began scanning channels. He picked up some folks in Asheville, North Carolina, having a conversation about the state of things there. That city was an odd mixture. There was a large hippie population and they were using the disaster as an excuse to get back to Mother Earth. Those hippies that had farms out of town were opening their doors to anyone willing to contribute free labor. They were accepting everyone who requested to join them. It was the communal living movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s all over again.
There was also a thriving survival and prepping culture in the area. Those folks were quietly retreating to their homesteads and bug out locations, shutting their gates to the world. They were certain that the hippies would not find surviving the winter to be very easy. While the hippies didn’t mind gardening, a lot of them were vegetarians and it was hard for a vegetarian or vegan to take in enough calories in a subsistence lifestyle. You couldn’t just pop into town for a falafel, feta, and arugula pita.
The survival groups were most concerned that the hippies and others with even fewer resources would come knocking on their doors any day. The hippies, on the other hand, worried that the survivalists were armed and would come take their food. Had the hippies understood the survivalists better, they would have realized that the survivalists offered nothing but encouragement to those willing to try and make their own way. It was those who tried to live off of the back of others that they had no love for. The survivalists were of the “teach a man to fish” school rather than the “let me give this man a fish” school.
While listening to this conversation was entertaining to Gary, it reached the point of containing more ranting than news and he switched to another frequency. Eventually, he came to rest on another conversation, catching a retired machinist from Richmond speaking with a retired Navy Radioman in the Virginia Beach area. By all accounts, neither city was doing well at all. Richmond, with a scarcity of resources within the boundaries of the city, had descended into chaos. It was controlled by street gangs on the north side and by bikers on the south side. Each sought to keep the other group on the opposing side of the James River. The machinist lived on the west end of the city and wanted to flee, but had no means to do so.
The criminal elements of Richmond spread northward from the city and tried to subsist by robbing and stealing along the I-95 corridor. Farther to the north, Washington, D.C. was under martial law. Under military rule, many of the residents of the city had been pushed out, toward Richmond to the south. The folks living in the rural areas between Washington and Richmond were pinched in the middle, dealing with constant raids, thefts, and murders.
The entire Hampton Roads-Newport News-Virginia Beach area was also under martial law. With such an enormous military population and a concentration of vital military assets, the government felt they had no choice but to lock down those cities. Criminal elements quickly felt the heat and migrated westward, also toward Richmond. While Richmond had once come back from being in the top five murder capitals in the nation, per capita, it was uncertain if they could come back from this. Anarchy ruled the former capital of the Confederacy.
The state government had fled from the capital city of Richmond and was now operating from somewhere in the Alexandria area. There had been talk of locating westward to Roanoke, but it was felt that their efforts might be more sustainable if they moved to a region of the country that was under martial law. The side effect of that was that Virginia quickly fell in bed with efforts to contain the disaster by restricting freedoms. These actions only resulted in hobbling those who were law-abiding enough to try and adhere to the state government’s new emergency regulations. Those unwilling to comply were branded outlaws. As the capability to disseminate the new emergency regulations by TV, radio, and the internet was limited due to widespread power outages, most of the outlaws did not yet know that they were outlaws.
Gary listened for as long as he could before he had to retreat to his bed for the night. He felt so depleted from his journey home that he was not sure how long it would take for him to feel energetic and well-rested again. As tired as he was, the news he heard on the radio was disturbing to the point that he almost wished he hadn’t even listened. He missed the ignorant bubble he’d been in a few days ago, but he couldn’t un-hear what had been heard any more than he could un-see the many horrific sights he had seen on the way home.
Chapter 14
The Valley
Jim’s House
At Lloyd’s insistence, Jim let Lloyd pick him up in the Scamp and drive him to town the next morning. Jim tried to explain the whole fuel conservation concept to Lloyd but it was against his nature and he only had one response.
“Fuck it,” he said.
So Jim let him drive. It was his gas after all, and who was Jim to tell him that he couldn’t burn it up? Jim had not been on this particular road into town since he’d made it home. The section where he lived was not crowded with abandoned vehicles. It didn’t receive much traffic except for the folks who lived back there. If one of their
cars broke down, they’d move it out of the road for safekeeping since they were close to home. That did not appear to have been the case on this road.
The connecting road between Jim’s valley and town ran along a small river. The road was on a high bank beside the river but it was close enough that care was required. There was no guard rail. In the winter, when the roads were icy, everyone drove slowly as to not end up in the river. It was clear that some cars had run out of fuel along this road, but they were no longer blocking the road. Someone, probably for purely entertainment purposes, had pushed all of those abandoned vehicles off into the river. While Jim likely would have done the same thing when he was younger, he was certain the fluids in the vehicles would not help the fishing situation, and that was unfortunate. The river had also once been the source from which the town drew its drinking water, although Jim assumed the plant was no longer running.
The first sign that they were nearing town came in the form of a shopping center housing the local superstore. There were also several other stores offering cash advances, manicures, discount clothes, and an excellent Mexican restaurant. They were on an access street that provided a shortcut between a back road and the shopping center.
“God, I miss that place,” Jim said. “We went there every Friday for food and cold bottles of Dos Equis.”
Lloyd cast a glance in that direction. “There’s something going on up there now, it looks like.” He slowed the vehicle.
Jim leaned over and took a look. The shopping center was shaped like the letter L and someone had taken vehicles and created a line that bridged across the parking lot, joining each end of the L. They had turned it into a triangle comprised of all the stores and a wedge-shaped section of the parking lot. It looked like someone had turned the store into a fortified encampment.
An opening had been left in the wall and a cop stood blocking it, an M4 held across his chest. He wore riot gear, like he was ready to engage an angry mob. Jim saw a flash of light that drew his eye to the roof of the store. He saw something breaking up the shape of the roofline. From the glimmer of light, he assumed it was a sniper’s scope and that they were in his cross-hairs. They shouldn’t linger too long.
There was a generator running somewhere behind the barricade. The smell of grilling meat carried across the parking lot. Jim could swear that he even heard the sound of children playing, but that sound did not go along with the serious bearing of the guard and the menacing wall of cars.
“They’re going to need more than one guard if the smell of that meat carries too far,” Lloyd said. “People will come in droves.”
Jim said, “I think the cops have created some kind of base up there. It looks like a command center for the emergency operations folks.”
A drone about two-feet square rose from behind the barricade and flew off to the east.
“What the hell was that?” Lloyd asked. “An alien?”
“A drone,” Jim replied. “I definitely think it’s the cops. They must be using that drone to do recon.”
“For what?”
“To look for resources and see what people are up to. It’s a hell of a lot safer for them to send that drone out than to let officers go knocking on people’s doors under the current circumstances. Someone would probably get shot. It also uses less fuel.”
“That Big Brother stuff makes me paranoid. I was happier thinking it was an alien,” Lloyd said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“This is a situation where paranoia is exactly the correct response,” Jim said. “Let’s move it.”
*
Banner Street felt distinctly different than most of the places Jim had seen over the course of this disaster. With so many houses in close proximity to each other he had no idea what to expect, but there were actually people moving and walking around in the neighborhood. It almost looked like any other summer afternoon. There were kids out playing and folks talking on porch steps. All of this changed when the loud Plymouth pulled onto the street.
Folks flew into high alert. Mothers called to their children and steered them into houses, locking the doors. The people talking on porches pulled their neighbors into their living rooms and closed the doors behind them. Blinds were shut. Jim even saw a group of teenagers who hid in the bushes because they couldn’t get to a house fast enough. These people appeared to be fairly relaxed but were exercising an entirely appropriate degree of caution. They’d either had some bad experiences or were just smarter than most. Perhaps that would keep them alive a little longer than some of the other people he’d met.
Thirty seconds ago, Jim’s plan had been to ask the nearest person in the street which house David’s family lived in. Now, with the streets abandoned, he had no idea what to do and he said as much to Lloyd.
Lloyd responded by slamming on the brakes, stopping the car in the middle of the street. “I got this.”
They were at a more populated section of the street and the houses were packed tightly around them. From where they sat, they were in sight of almost all of the houses in the neighborhood. Lloyd climbed out of the car and onto the hood of the vehicle.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jim hissed, staring through the windshield at his friend.
Lloyd ignored him and stood on the hood. Jim was reminded that it was a good thing this was a vintage car with a hood strong enough to support someone standing on it. On a newer car, Lloyd would have sunk to his knees. Lloyd raised his hands to his mouth.
“Attention people of Banner Street!” he yelled, doing an imitation of a town crier. “We’re looking for David Sullivan’s house. We have important information for his wife. We are not here to cause any trouble.”
Lloyd hopped down from the hood and walked around to Jim’s window. “What did you think about that?” he remarked. “Simple and direct.”
“I thought I was watching a Broadway play,” Jim said. “Such delivery. We’ll see if it works.”
People must have been discussing Lloyd’s statement behind closed doors and trying to determine if he was telling the truth. Apparently, they found him credible. In less than a minute after he climbed off the hood, the door of an immaculate brick cottage opened and a man in khakis and a polo shirt stepped out. His clothes looked expensive but were wrinkled and a little dirty. He had his hands in his pockets and it was obvious there was a gun in there. Jim didn’t blame him for that. It was a logical response.
“What are you looking for?” the man asked.
“David Sullivan’s house,” Jim replied, getting out of the car. “I need to speak to his wife.”
“Why?” the man asked. With his bluntness, it was clear he had no intention of sharing any information unless he was satisfied with the answers to his question.
“Because I need to tell her that her husband is dead,” Jim said. If bluntness was the shared language of the new era, then he had no trouble using it. In fact, it came pretty natural to him.
The man appeared startled by this, then looked down at the ground. “Sweet girl,” he said. “She knew something had happened. Said she could feel it.”
“It happened a few days ago,” Jim said. “I just wanted to talk to her about it.”
The man raised his eyes to Jim. “She’s with her parents,” he said. “They managed to come up with some fuel somehow and they came and got her and her kids. I think she knew by that point that David wasn’t coming back home.”
“Where do her parents live?” Jim asked. “I really need to talk to her.”
“Abingdon,” the man replied. “Not sure where though.”
“Shit,” Lloyd said. “That’s another thirty miles each way. I’m not sure I have the gas for that.”
Jim shook his head at Lloyd. “That’s okay,” he said. “We’re not going to Abingdon. We definitely can’t spare gas just for that.”
Jim stepped up on the sidewalk and moved closer to the man. This obviously made the guy a little nervous because the hand in his pocket closed around the grip of the gun he was c
arrying. Jim had no bad intentions, he just didn’t want the whole street to hear his business. He spoke quieter. “Can I leave her a note? If I write her one, can you give it to her if she comes back?”
The man looked relieved that this was all Jim wanted. “Sure,” he said. “I got no guarantee that I’ll see her again, but if I do I’ll give it to her. Let me get you something to write on.” The man withdrew back into the house and returned with a ledger pad and a pen.
While Jim wrote, the man said, “I hate that about David,” he said. “He was a good boy. They had small children.”
Jim nodded. “I agree. They were good people. His dad, Henry, was a good friend of mine.”
“Was? Is he dead too? How…?” the man asked, not quite sure how to put the question.
“One of the criminals they released from the jail came through and killed several folks out in the valley, including David’s parents,” Jim explained. “I buried them all together behind the house, in case she asks. There’s a marker on their graves.”
The man considered this for a moment. “What about that man? The one who killed them? Is he still out there wandering around somewhere?”
Jim looked up from his note and caught the man’s eye. “No. He’s dead too. I killed him myself and left his body for the coyotes. He didn’t deserve a proper burial.”
The man’s eyes widened and he swallowed hard, but Jim sensed that he was pleased by the answer. He certainly didn’t want someone like Charlie Rakes showing up at his house. Things were obviously insulated there in his neighborhood. They’d not seen that kind of ugliness. They’d not had to kill to save themselves or their friends.
Yet.
Jim finished writing and folded the note. He handed it to the man, along with the writing supplies. “So how are you folks getting by?” he asked.
Legion of Despair: Book Three in The Borrowed World Series Page 19