by Suzanne Weyn
Brock stood beside Mr. Curtin. “I’ll go up there and try to talk to them,” he volunteered.
Carlos stood and joined Brock. “I’ll go with you,” he said.
“No, it’s too dangerous,” Mrs. Curtin disagreed.
“I’ll go with him, too,” Niki said.
Brock looked at her, surprised.
“I have a house in Marietta. Maybe I’ll know some of the people and I can talk to them,” Niki said. “They’ll see me as a neighbor, maybe.”
“Are you crazy?” a man from the workshop said. “Those people are throwing rocks. You’ll get killed.”
“Well, I’m not standing down here waiting to be killed,” said the man with the kitchen knife.
Mr. Curtin raised his arms to settle the crowd. “No one will get killed or even hurt if we keep our heads. Hector, open the door and let anyone out who wants to leave.”
Hector pulled the door open and eleven people left quickly. “Remember to lock it shut from your side,” he reminded the last one out.
“You’re not going?” Brock asked Hector.
“No way,” he replied. “And miss all this action? Never.”
Mr. Curtin headed toward the stairs and started going up. Mary Curtin joined him, and the rest of the remaining nine from the Sage Valley workshop group followed.
More glass broke and now Niki could hear frantic, excited voices coming from upstairs. “They’re almost in,” Hector reported from the top of the stairs.
Frightened, Niki took Brock’s hand. With his worried eyes still on the stairs, Brock squeezed it and kept walking with her.
On the first floor, Niki stepped back in fear, still clutching Brock’s hand. Broken glass lay all over the floor and people were starting to climb through the shattered front panes.
“They have electricity in here!” shouted a balding man in a sweatshirt and jeans as he knocked the jagged shards of glass from the windowpanes with an ax. “Come on!”
Behind him were at least twenty people, some with rocks in their hands, ready to stampede in.
“Please, everyone, calm down!” Mr. Curtin implored as he went toward the broken window. “Stay calm and there’s enough here for everyone.”
“Then why haven’t you shared it already?” shouted a woman outside. Mr. Curtin turned toward her voice just as a rock hit him in the head, knocking him into his wife. A line of blood gushed from his forehead.
“That’s it!” cried the man with the kitchen knife. “We’re not going to just stand here and take this!” The people behind surged forward but then stopped abruptly.
The sound of roaring engines came toward them. It took a moment for Niki to realize what was crashing through the woods toward them. The Marietta people outside were equally stunned by the sight, frozen where they stood.
A motorcycle pulled up in front of the Whippersnapper 3 and a leather-clad male figure jumped from his bike. When the rider pushed back the visor on his helmet, Niki recognized him. “That’s Gwen’s brother,” she told Brock.
“Just in time,” Brock remarked. “I’m going to help him.”
“I’ll come with you,” Niki said.
“No—stay back here,” Brock disagreed, letting go of her hand.
Niki let him get a few paces ahead and then followed him toward the window. Kicking away more sharp glass at the panes, Brock stepped out behind Luke, and Carlos went out behind him. Her heart pounding with fear, Niki went out, too.
Looking to both sides, she saw about ten other bikers. They held clubs and chains in a successful effort to appear as menacing as possible. “You people are invading private property,” Luke said, “and me and my buddies are here to make sure you don’t.”
In the distance, the wail of police sirens could be heard.
Niki ducked her head as a tremendous wind shook the trees. A police helicopter hovered just above the trees.
“Oh, and did I mention the police are on their way?” Luke shouted over the thundering of the police chopper.
NORTH COUNTRY NEWS
County Police Clamp Down on Civil
Violence Connected to Severe Shortages
Sage County police arrested eighty-one people recently in connection to outbreaks of civil unrest due to the fact that so many towns in Sage County have been without electricity and other services since OscPearl decimated the area over two weeks ago.
In one of the most shocking displays of violence, close to approximately fifty citizens of Marietta township descended on the semirural town of Sage Valley—many of them on foot due to the current ongoing gas shortage—in search of much-needed food, medicine, and other goods that have been unavailable in Marietta since the hurricane struck. George Amos of Marietta, speaking from the county jail, made this statement to the press: “We came because we read the article about the mysterious guy in the orange canoe delivering fresh produce. Our kids are hungry and sick. We figured if he had food to deliver, there must be more of it. We came intending to buy it, but when we couldn’t find anything, I guess we got crazy.”
CHAPTER 22
Saturday morning, Gwen rolled over and gazed around her small bedroom in the Whippersnapper 3. She’d been staying there with the Curtins ever since she and Tom returned from their journey downriver two weeks earlier. They’d sailed at least a dozen more times since then, each time having to go less and less far since towns closer to home were beginning to recover.
Next door, she could hear the hum of the magnetic generator and she found it comforting to know she would have heat and light on that chilly October morning. She knew it would be brisk out because they’d been checking the weather report frequently, hoping for a good day. Hopefully, it would be sunny and cool, just as reported.
Outside her room, she heard voices talking amiably. The robust and distinctly Australian tones of Ricky Montbank, owner of the Whippersnapper 3, could be heard above those of Mr. and Mrs. Curtin. “I’m glad to do it, Mary,” he was saying to Mrs. Curtin. “I think what you want to do is remarkable, and my Whippersnapper Corporation is delighted to support it. This event today will bring lots of attention to the company.”
“That’s not really why we’re doing it,” Mrs. Curtin said. “You understand that, don’t you, Ricky? We just believe it’s the right thing to do.”
“Of course! Of course it’s the right thing.”
“So no press,” Mr. Curtin requested. “Please. We don’t want anyone to be embarrassed. Folks in Marietta are used to being on the winning side, and we don’t want them humiliated by this.”
“Oh, all right,” Ricky Montbank said, relenting. “But if you’re going to make Sage Valley a showcase for green living, you have to be more publicity oriented. I’m letting you all stay here because the time is right to sell this kind of home.”
There was scratching at Gwen’s door, and she swung herself out of bed to open it just enough to let Larry wander in. Smiling, she ruffled his fur. “Hey, Larry, are you ready for today? Where’s Tom?”
Gwen threw on a white terry robe as she followed Larry out the door, waving sleepily to the Curtins and Ricky Montbank. They were seated at the table in front of what used to be the solar window. Ricky Montbank had promised to have it replaced before the week was out.
“They’re all upstairs getting ready,” Mr. Curtin told Gwen as she passed by.
Climbing the stairs to the garden room, Gwen found Niki, Brock, Hector, Carlos, and Tom filling baskets with fruits and vegetables from the garden room. “Nice of you to get up,” Hector teased. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Gwen replied, poking him playfully. She found Tom across the garden room and waved to him. He smiled at her warmly as he returned the gesture.
“Go have your breakfast and then we need help carrying these baskets out. We have a guy coming at nine with a bunch of horses,” Tom told her.
“No kidding?” Gwen asked.
“Yeah,” Niki said, wiping her glasses on her sweater. “He has horses that can pull wagons, and we
’re going to load them up with the food.”
“How are they getting around the trees?” Brock asked.
“He knows a dirt road around the back way up,” Niki explained.
“Okay, I’m going to grab a bite and come right back,” Gwen told them. “Be right back.”
Gwen pulled her bicycle alongside Tom’s as they rode into Marietta. Brock and Niki were ahead of them. They were all riding new bicycles donated by Ricky Montbank’s company, as were the nearly sixty or so other residents of Sage Valley, most of whom were also participants in Mary Curtin’s effort, underwritten by a grant from Whippersnapper, to make Sage Valley a completely energy self-sufficient town. Once spring came, there would be a program of local farming as well.
This, ultimately, was how they would survive. Even if there was gas to be had, it would only be had by the very rich or the very powerful. The police would need it and the army would need it. People like Gwen and Tom weren’t going to be on that priority list. And until the area started using wind power or nuclear power or some other kind of power to fuel electricity, there were going to be some hard times. The town—and its citizens—would never be connected to the world in the same way again.
“Wow. Marietta is a wreck,” Gwen commented to Tom.
Tom nodded, gazing around at the closed, boarded-up stores, the abandoned cars, the trash in the streets. In his bike basket were some of the toiletries he and Gwen had picked up during their last trip down the river: shampoo, toothpaste, toilet tissue, razors, and so on.
Beside him, a horse sputtered, causing him to startle. As it drew ahead, its open cart filled with baskets of produce, Hector, who was seated in back, waved to them. “I feel like a pioneer traveling west,” he said.
“We are pioneers traveling west,” Gwen pointed out. It was exactly how she saw them, as pioneers.
The procession stopped at an abandoned gas station, the one people had flocked to just a month earlier, the one with the private fuel tanker.
The crowd quieted to hear Mary Curtin yell out, “Start setting up your stands around this gas station. Remember, we’re not taking any money for this. It’s a gesture of goodwill. Be sure everyone gets a flyer telling them about our energy workshops and programs in town.”
“What if no one comes out?” a man on a bike asked.
“They’ll come,” Mr. Curtin said. “They’re still hurting for food and supplies.”
With a roar, Luke and his pals made a grand show of riding in with the Sage Valley group.
“Listen to this,” Gwen said to Tom. “Luke knows the guy who refitted your truck for ethanol, and they’re teaching a workshop on how to do it together down at Ghost Motorcycle. Can you believe it?”
“Yeah?” Tom asked, interested. “I learned a lot when I converted my truck. Do you think they might want some help teaching it?”
“You’d want to do that?” Gwen asked.
“I think so.”
Gwen smiled at him. Looking around, she noticed that people from Marietta had already realized what was going on and were streaming into the gas station area, helping the volunteers from Sage Valley to set up their food and supply stands.
A small fireball of happiness and new hope began to spin down at Gwen’s very center and it grew stronger and brighter by the moment, until it felt like it filled her. Maybe the world didn’t have to be a pit of greed and overconsumption; maybe something better—something like what was happening right then and there—was really possible after all.
It was true—the world had ended. And now the new world was beginning.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SUZANNE WEYN is the acclaimed author of many novels that delve into the worlds of science fiction and history, including The Bar Code Tattoo, The Bar Code Rebellion, Reincarnation, and Distant Waves. She lives in a valley in New York state.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2010 by Suzanne Weyn
Cover art & design © 2010 by Phil Falco
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First edition, October 2010
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