Day after day, the sun broke from its nest and climbed hard into a piercing blue sky. No clouds in any direction. Even the stifling humidity failed to trigger the big storms that were normally frequent in Virginia in June. The sight of people craning their necks up, willing the skies to darken and bring the rains was commonplace. Then they would sigh, their shoulders sagging upon the realization that today wouldn’t be the one for rain either.
Irrigation helped minimize the damage to the crops. It had been one of their earliest capital improvements—a complicated system of PVC piping drawing fresh water from the James River and to the fields. Without electrical power and bare knowledge drawn from old reference books in the country library, the system was difficult to operate and thus only used during the driest of spells. It impacted their output, costing them about a third of the expected June harvest.
And if the drought conditions had been their only problem, it might have been okay. They might have made it through the hot, dry summer unscathed. The first Friday of the month was close, but they just made their quota. But as they struggled to keep the crops hydrated, sometime around the second week of June, Promise was hit with an invasion of aphids. Lucy could not remember who’d first spotted them; they had been so careful, so careful. Mark Ellis, the farm manager, was particularly sensitive to pestilence and spent a good chunk of his time on watch for the slightest hint of invasion.
But aphids were particularly sneaky, and in this case, they had been particularly unlucky. They showed up in a sector of the farm that Jack had just finished inspecting the day before; by the time the next set of eyes hit that area, it was too late. Lucy walked the fields, her eyes filled with tears as she studied the mangled crops. Aphids suckled the sap from a wide range of cultivated plants, weakening them until they were barely clinging to life and compromising their ability to bear fruit.
They fought like junkyard dogs to curtail the damage, and only their yeoman’s efforts prevented the insects from wiping out the complete harvest. But their early estimate, and this was being generous, was that they had lost fifty percent of the crop before bringing the infestation under control. Each of the next three weeks was a sphincter-clenching nightmare as they fought to meet the quota.
By the time the first Friday of July hit, Promise’s cupboard was virtually barren.
They were going to miss their quota.
Lucy did not sleep a wink that night. She doubted many people did.
She was up at first light. Ironically, a heavy layer of clouds had moved in overnight, and it looked like a sure bet they would have some rain before the day was out. The morning was more than a little symbolic. If someone had been writing a nonfiction account of their post-apocalyptic experience, of course it would be raining on the morning that they would fall short of their colonial obligations.
Her stomach rumbled. Like many others, she had contributed her meager rations to the children of Promise. She could manage a couple days without food; the younger kids could not. Even they seemed to understand the pickle they were in. Not one said a word about the vegetables on their plate, slurping them down without complaint.
The morning dragged by interminably.
Part of her wanted it done already, even while another dreaded what lay ahead. They always said that waiting for the bad thing to happen was always worse than the bad thing actually happening. She wanted to believe that. But she had a terrible feeling that the bad thing was going to be much worse than the mere anticipation of it. She felt guilty for letting it come to this. Perhaps if they had worked a little harder, spent a little more time ruminating on it, they could have come up with a plan to come out from under the thumb of their mysterious overlords.
But that was wishful thinking.
Just because she was the hero of her own story did not make her invincible. There were bad people out there, and it was just their time in the barrel. She remained optimistic that they would figure a way out of this particular darkness, but it wasn’t going to be today, and it might not be tomorrow or next month or even next year. But someday, they would find their way back into the light.
But before they could make it to any of those waypoints, first, they had to make it through today.
Today.
Just grant them a little mercy.
Already, the crops were recovering, and she was optimistic that they would have no problem meeting their next quota, even if they had to tighten their belts a little longer. They could do it. They would suffer, and it would be terrible, but things were trending in the right direction. Then they could focus on the fall harvest and pickling and canning. They could resume planning their independence from their oppressors.
Promise was extremely quiet that morning. People shuffled along without saying much to one another. Everyone knew that it was going to be a bad day, like a particularly bad trip to the dentist. Just get the tooth pulled and be done with it. It could only get better from here. In fact, a light sprinkle had been falling all morning. Not the purplish gray of thunderclouds, but better than the cobalt blue sky they’d been staring at for weeks.
Mark Ellis and Jack waited for the couriers at the main gate. Lucy lingered with another small group not far behind them. No need to draw it out. The dust cloud from the approaching horses harkened their arrival a good ten minutes before she put eyes on the Haven’s crew. Right on schedule, the couriers arrived to pick up their weekly share. She hated how punctual they were. Promise was one of multiple tribute communities, and the fact they were always on time meant that the Haven had its shit together.
Three on horseback, accompanied by a fourth pulling the all-familiar wagon. Joshua was with them, as he always was. Lucy hated him and the way he fancied himself as some kind of ambassador. As though their familiarity with one another softened the monstrousness of their occupation of Promise.
He pulled back on the reins, a big smile on his dumb face.
“Well, don’t I feel special?” he said, clapping a hand to his chest. “You two coming all the way up here to say hi.”
He dismounted, spat on the ground, tucked his thumbs into his belt. He wore jeans, black boots, and a sleeveless, black leather jacket.
Why did everything have to be such a cliché in this world?
“How’s everybody doing?”
“Look, Joshua, no point in beating around the bush,” Mark said, “but we’re short this week.”
“How short?” he asked without a hint of emotion.
“We had a bit of a pest problem, but this dry spell really killed us.”
“How. Short?”
“Really short,” Jack said. “Maybe a quarter.”
He clicked his tongue rapidly against his teeth. It sounded like a rattlesnake in the weeds.
“That is disappointing.”
Lucy’s heart was beating rapidly against her ribcage. They had never discussed the specific consequences of failing to meet the quota, but it was clear that it wouldn’t be anything good.
“You know, we’re hoping you can cut us a break this time,” Lucy said.
The Council had agreed on this approach last night. They wouldn’t beg, but there was no harm in negotiating. Promise had been a good producer, easily meeting their quotas every week. Even last week, when it had been a close call, and there had been empty tummies throughout Promise, they had delivered a complete share. Their luck had simply run out.
Joshua retreated to the rider on the horse-drawn wagons and exchanged a few words with him. The man handed him a slip of paper. Then he slowly approached Lucy and Jack, slowly tapping his hands together, his lips pressed tightly together. Lucy watched him like a hawk. This was going to end badly.
“I’m disappointed,” he said. “We’ve come to rely on you. You’re one of our best producers.”
“All the more reason to give us a break.”
He lit a cigarette, smoked it quietly, crushed it under his boot. The quad had fallen quiet. The silence was almost painful. No one spoke.
“I
wish I could agree with you,” he said.
Another stretch of awkward silence.
“You see, our world is an unforgiving one,” Joshua said, pacing around Lucy and Jack. “We fight against that with order. Without order, there is chaos. And if there is chaos, it all comes undone.”
He paused when he’d come back face-to-face with Lucy.
“Undone.”
Another silence.
“Do you want everything to come undone?” he asked. “Well? Do you?”
“No.”
“No! Of course not. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go back to the early days when we were killing each other like dogs for a can of baked beans.”
He disengaged from Lucy and Jack and addressed the crowd that had formed.
“Do you want to kill each other for baked beans?”
No one replied, but there was a smattering of unenthusiastic head shakes.
“See?” he said, refocusing back on Lucy.
“So what happens now?”
“Now we make it clear that there are consequences. So there is no misunderstanding. If I call your name, please step forward.”
He rattled off five names.
Robert Finney
Esther Schwartz
Paul Poytress
Jacob Campos
Michael Lopez
The four men and one woman came forward. Lucy clenched her fists so tightly that the nails cut tiny crescent moons into her skin, leaving her with four bloody smirks in each palm. To be at such terrible mercy of another. But what choice did they have? They had yet to even locate the Haven. And when they came to Promise, they came in force. They were simply outmanned and outgunned. She could do the math.
Lucy had hoped to use the summer to gather intel on the group and exploit their weaknesses. Jack was not as patient. If today was about to go sideways, and all indications were that it was indeed about to do that, he would be difficult to corral.
Joshua walked the chorus line of the terrified group, up and down, up and down, like a drill sergeant inspecting a new batch of recruits. Then in the blink of an eye, he placed a gun to the forehead of one Robert Finney, triggering a ripple of groans and murmurs from the crowd. He fired a single shot into the man’s forehead. Finney’s body dropped like a puppet whose string had been cut. A few screams pierced the silence, but only a few. As though what had just happened was expected.
As for Joshua, his summary execution of Robert Finney did not appear to faze him. He continued walking the line up and down. One of the remaining four, Paul Poytress, doubled over and vomited. Several were crying, but no one moved.
Lucy felt sick herself. This group’s capacity for inhumanity was difficult to process. But they were a conquered people now, and this was how it was. You had your victors and your vanquished, and if the victors turned out to be like their occupiers, well then God help you.
Joshua paused once more before the line of potential victims. Finney’s body still lay where it had fallen, leaving a noticeable gap between Paul and Esther. He stepped toward Esther and placed a hand gently on her shoulder. Her eyes cut to the ground. She did not look at him. She was an older black woman; she had remained deeply religious and led a weekly faith service at Promise.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said.
Her eyes remained focused squarely on the ground.
He tilted her chin upward so they were eye to eye.
“But it’s important,” he said. “In furtherance of something greater than all of us. This is the beginning of something wondrous. Do you understand?”
She nodded subtly.
Then he shot Esther in the forehead.
16
August.
Although the days were still long, they had grown noticeably shorter than the fertile days of early summer. In June, the light clung to the day like a baby to its mother, but now, like a teenager, daylight seemed ready to flee at the first opportunity. The warmth held on, however, even well after sunset. The air was thick with the heat that had built up over the day. All in all, Virginia’s hottest month of the year had not disappointed. Sometimes Lucy pictured a red bulb of mercury at the tip of an old thermometer inflating and then bursting like in the old cartoons. The saving grace was that the long drought had finally ended. Every day or two, big thunderclouds fired up to the west and delivered a good soaking. They were lucky. Rain was normally scarce in August unless a mid-summer tropical system snuck ashore and sent waves of moisture a hundred miles inland.
After the summer they’d had, they needed a bit of luck. Just something to get them through. The rain had helped. The crops had recovered, and within a month, they were close to their pre-drought output. The next couple of Fridays had been close, and there had been some tightening of the belts, but they had made it. But this week, everything had come together. A number of plants that they’d given up on had started to bear fruit. There was enough to meet the quota and plenty to eat. The couriers had left in the middle of the afternoon, their bizarre horse-drawn pickup truck chassis loaded down with the fruits of their labor, taking what did not belong to them. It physically pained Lucy to see them leave with their blood, sweat, and tears. Tonight, they had feasted. They sat around and filled their bellies with flatbread, roasted tomatoes, zucchini, and cheese they had made themselves. They got drunk on terrible moonshine fermented from potatoes. Afterwards, they sat by the fire, despite the heat, and kept drinking. A few older teenagers snuck in a few nips at the bottle; no one seemed to care. They did not get away with it, as they believed. Teens never got away with it. Not from the first time that a teenager had raided their parents’ liquor cabinet, back before they even had liquor cabinets. Wherever they stored beer back in the early days of beer making.
Fireflies pinged the fragrant air. In the absence of artificial light, they had made a huge comeback these past five years. Lucy recalled articles about the rapid demise of lightning bugs each year. The Pulse had taken care of that in a hurry. This time of year, they were ubiquitous in the evenings, a decidedly American version of the Northern Lights.
It was an absolutely delightful evening, but as Lucy sat near the fire, she remained troubled. It seemed as though everyone had just moved on from the horrific executions of Esther and Robert. This wasn’t the case, of course. Everyone grieved in their own way. And life had to move on. She understood the need to celebrate when they could.
Fulfilling the weekly quota was a relief, especially after the horror they’d endured. Knowing they had a little time to breathe before the next pickup left them feeling good, like they had accomplished something. It was a dumbass thing to think, of course, to be proud of your new role as a supplicant. To be happy with the scraps. To be happy with the scraps of a bounty that you yourself had seen to.
The loss of life they’d seen was shocking. Promise had seen relatively little bloodshed during its fragile existence. These were people who still had full, clear memories of the old days, and it was hard on all of them to see such violence. That wouldn’t always be the case as they continued to peel off calendar pages.
But they had been beaten. Lucy could see it in their faces. She could see it in her own face. Beaten. Much of it stemmed from the violent deaths their fellow citizens. It was this kind of loss that inured you to the way the world was. It was the most depressing education one could imagine.
But still it nagged at her. The laughter, the merriment.
How could they enjoy themselves if they were just one bad step away from another bloodbath at the hands of the Haven?
Lucy stuffed her hands in her pockets and stomped away from the campfire. Her celebratory mood was fading, and she wanted to be alone. She wanted to see Tim. He would understand. He would not have participated in this folly. Together they would develop a plan, a strategy to take down the Haven.
Drink. She needed to drink. She went back to the campfire and asked for the bottle from Teresa. She took a long swig of the swill, recoiling as it burned her
throat, but continued her long drink. Then she handed the bottle back to Teresa, her face hot and her head swimmy, and stomped off. Nothing mattered. It was how it was. Maybe she was the one who had it wrong, and her neighbors had the right idea. What was the central tenet of hedonism? A lesson from her AP English teacher, Mrs. Key, came back to her: eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Was it Shakespeare? No, she didn’t think so. It was too harsh and not poetic enough for Shakespeare. Well, fuck off, Bill. Sometimes, clear and to the point was better than poetry.
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
She laughed.
There was no stopping what was coming.
They were like locusts, the Haven, and they would suck Promise dry. There was no wider community to be a part of. Like a Mafia capo, they would take all they could. Sure, you got your protection as long as you paid the piper, but once the goodies stopped flowing, they would burn it down. In the case of Promise, the outcome would be far worse. They would just die. Maybe not right away. When it became apparent that the end was near, the place would just fall in on itself like a deck of cards. No one would fight because there would be nothing to fight for. Why kill yourself when there was nothing left but a barren cupboard and empty bellies? You would take your chances out on the road. That’s how it worked. Communities rose and fell every day. You weren’t special. It was like the story of western civilization. Empires rose and fell, and now it was happening in miniature on a grand scale.
Despite the heat, a somewhat fresh breeze was blowing through the camp. A hint of fall hidden away in there behind the curtain of humidity.
They still knew very little about the Haven. Jack had tried following once, but each group was accompanied by decoys who took different routes, crisscrossing this way and that until it was impossible to figure out which horse or wagon was headed where. Jack abandoned his pursuit, worried that he might have been spotted.
Lucy shouldn’t have been drinking so much.
American Midnight | Book 2 | Nightfall Page 13