by L. T. Vargus
“Tomorrow. They’re too hot to ride around in for very long.”
Izzy nodded and eventually ran off to climb one of the trees nearby.
So to finish my thought from earlier…
I was going to write that sometimes I wonder if Marissa gets along with Marcus better because he reminds her of her son. Marissa doesn’t talk about him, so I don’t know anything about him other than that his name was Tony. And, well, the fact that she’s here, and he’s not probably definitely means he’s dead.
Anyway, we’ve got a few more hours of riding ahead of us, so I better go round up Izzy and get moving.
Done for the day, and it’s not even 6 pm. Plenty of light left in the sky.
It seems wrong to have this much day remaining and to waste it sitting around. We could use the rest of course. It’s a hard ride. But back home, we’re out at first light, and we don’t quit until sunset. There’s just too much to be done. There’s always another task waiting to be completed.
Right now, Marcus and Marissa are probably hauling water from the river to water the seeds they planted today. I don’t envy them, lugging the big rolling garbage cans back and forth a dozen or so times. They have to weigh a few hundred pounds filled with water. (Actually, I just did the math, and one of the 64-gallon carts filled to the brim would weigh over 500 pounds! You can’t actually fill them all the way and haul them around, but still.) Even thinking about it makes me feel guilty for sitting here on this porch, admiring the view.
We’re in a tiny town called Catawba, camped out in the lobby of what used to be a restaurant. Maybe a bed and breakfast, too, because it’s in this huge old house. There’s a big pond on the property, so we can conserve some of the water we brought. You never know. Izzy’s bummed out that we didn’t bring her fishing gear. Honestly, I am, too. The preserved fish I packed is fine and all, but fresh is better.
You know what? I shouldn’t be complaining. We found something way better than fish. Once I cleared the place, I let Izzy explore while I hid our bikes around back. One of the cabinets is full of gift shop crap: t-shirts with the restaurant logo, mugs, candles. You get the idea. The candles are already a great score. I’ll probably keep half and see what I can get for the rest in Roanoke. But that’s not all. No, sir. Izzy also found jars of apple butter and — wait for it — CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES.
I won’t sugarcoat it. (Pun intended.) The cookies are hella stale. But it doesn’t matter, because do you have any idea how fucking long it’s been since I had a homemade cookie?! Years.
Still trying to decide if I’ll sell any of those. I’ll keep at least a bag for Marcus and one for Marissa, because she could use a little sweetening. Ha.
It’s been a while since I had a carb rush like this. Izzy and I couldn’t stop grinning and giggling as we ate them.
We rounded out a nutritious meal of half a bag of cookies each with some hardboiled eggs. I was never a huge fan of eggs before, but now I can never seem to get enough. All those hours Izzy and I spent chasing and catching those damn chickens around town was totally worth it.
Can’t sleep. You’d think after all the riding and the fact that I barely slept last night, that I would have zonked as soon as my head touched the pillow. But no.
For one, my leg aches. It’s funny, it didn’t really bother me at all on the ride. But now it feels like someone borrowed my tibia and fibula to use as drumsticks. Beat on the ol’ tubs for a while and then put them back.
I took three of the ibuprofen I brought along, so hopefully that helps.
That’s not the only thing keeping me up, of course.
I’ve got 99 problems and… I thought I had something clever for that, but I guess not.
My point is, I’ve got a million-and-one damn things to worry about.
The only other time Marcus and I have been apart for this long was the last trip to Roanoke. I have this paranoid voice in the back of my head that is convinced something will happen back home while I’m gone.
It’s more than that, though. There was a time not that long ago when I thought it would be just me and Izzy, forever and ever. But I keep having this feeling like something is missing, and then I realize it’s Marcus. It doesn’t feel right to be out here without him.
Even Marissa… there’s an extra shred of loneliness without her presence.
Before I couldn’t imagine living with other people again. Now I can’t imagine living without them.
Well, let me be clear. I can’t imagine living without my people. Izzy, Marcus, Marissa. Even that damned squirrel. Anyone else is a threat, as far as I’m concerned.
Which makes Roanoke feel like entering the lion’s den.
So many people, nearly all of them rough-looking and probably mean as hell. I guess because that’s the key to survival now. Being a rough, mean son-of-a-bitch.
And most of them have no problem just openly staring at you with their cold, hard eyes. Probably doing the math in their head, wondering how easy it would be to gut you and take everything strapped to your back. And probably worse. I felt one too many sets of predatory eyes on me last time, crawling over my skin like spiders.
But I have a plan for that.
For now, I should try to get whatever bit of crappy sleep I can, though.
Your mean son-of-a-bitch BFF, signing off,
-Erin
Jeremiah
Rural Maryland
10 years, 40 days after
This morning we left the camp we’d stayed over these past few days. Not sure if we completed our objective here. Not sure if we won this little swath of land or they did. Are we advancing or retreating? Who can say?
So we loaded up our rucks until they made the muscles along our spines quaver, and then we got on with the multi-mile hump to wherever we’re going next. Probably a different patch of sod we can and will patrol for a bit.
We’re resting up now. Stopped off in a little clearing in the woods. Pissing. Drinking some water. The march will resume again soon.
The first hour moving out, the men were just about dead silent. I guess that makes sense. Something about the early morning is quiet, you know. Still. Like the whole world isn’t quite awake yet.
But as the sun fully breached the horizon, Alabama eventually broke the silence.
“Sometimes I think this whole war is about prostitution.”
No one responded, but he pretended that a bunch of us had tried to argue with him, I guess.
“Wait. Now hang on. Hear me out on this one.”
We heard him out. Not like we had a choice.
“From what I understand, the Crusaders live in squalor. They’ve got their little shit-town village cobbled together in some valley in Maryland. The whole community is comprised of little shacks all close together. Even some tents, I think. Thousands of people huddled together like refugees in essentially a bunch of sheds that are packed so tightly that the eaves of the roofs touch each other.”
We’d all heard similar stories about the camp where the Crusaders lived.
“And then the buildings themselves are also filled to the brim. They sleep on cots at best, or pile up side-by-side on floors in sleeping bags. Neat little rows of humanity bundled in tight rolls like sushi.”
“I’d eat sushi right now,” Smitty said. “Hell, I’d eat a raw, whole tuna, bones and all. Don’t even need the rice.”
Alabama powered on, not acknowledging the culinary aside.
“It’s a simple, agricultural existence. They grow and harvest food, trade a little of their harvest for whatever outside provisions they need. No electricity. No plumbing or anything. They haul tanks of shit out in the woods in trucks and bury it in the ground.”
He shook his head.
“Personally, I can’t imagine their little shanty town wouldn’t reek like piss at all times. Probably worse when it gets hot out. Swampy piss vapor wafting up into the humid air. Clouds of it so acrid that it makes your eyes sting.”
This elicited some nods fro
m the group.
“In the Free Cities, we have houses and running water. We’ve got coal to power the factories, and we’ve got solar-power enough to run the pumps for the water mains, along with a little entertainment like movie theaters and crap like that, at least part of the time. The grid is a fuckin’ mess that’ll probably never be quite right, I’ll grant you that. And we’ll never have enough solar panels to have power for everyone, but….”
This was true. Our ability to manufacture new solar panels was severely limited without access to oil of all things. The conventional plastic polymer that forms the protective back sheets of the panels requires petroleum we don’t have. In any case, the electricity is slowly advancing into the residential sector. Very slowly. Better than nothing.
Alabama went on.
“We have something of an actual economy is what I mean. Not like the dirt-worshippers in Father’s camp. Goods are produced and sold — guns, ammo, clothes. So on. Even have a school we send the kids to, albeit a shitty, disorganized one.”
He spit on the ground.
“But we have what I guess you’d call a dark side, too.”
We walked a while, waiting for him to go on. Looking back, I’d say his monologue had a dramatic pause just here.
“The crusaders live something of a pure life. They put their messiah up on a pedestal, and that brings them together in some strange way. Commits them to a set of morals or spiritual values that you don’t find in the Free Cities. For all their backward ways, I have to give them that.”
Alabama sniffed.
“Where I live — where we live — there is a cruelty running beneath all things, a dead-eyed way of looking at the world, of treating other people. Everything has a price. Everything. Even people.”
He spit again.
“So if you think about it that way, of course our two groups can never coexist, you know. Of course they want to fight us. We are the evil ones, the way they see it. Just go down to Garden City in Roanoke. Go down to Kabrich Crescent in Blacksburg. See for yourself. See the women for sale. The children for sale. Go to the city square in Knoxville, where they hang brown people from the tree, where the guillotine lops the heads off the members of the rebellion, and the crowds all cheer. That’s just part of living in the Sovereign Cities for us, part of living under the rule of the Squadron, but imagine how it looks from the outside, especially how it’d look to a pack of spiritual hippies who think they’re serving out God’s will.”
We fell quiet. All talk dying off. The swish and beat of our footsteps trampling grass rose to fill the emptiness.
After what felt like a long time, a voice rose up. It was Henley, our resident psychopath.
“Yeah, but it’s not like that. Not like how you say. The Squadron rules the Sovereign Cities. We don’t have no say in any of it. We’re the, uh, what do you call it? We’re the serfs. We keep our heads down. Do our jobs.”
“That’s not how they see it, though,” Alabama said.
“I mean, yeah. Sure. But it don’t matter how they see it,” Henley said. “Matters how it is, how it really is.”
Alabama’s eyebrows crinkled some before he answered.
“Well, my whole point was to sort of elaborate on how they see it. That was the thesis, right? That this whole war is because of prostitution. And you have to look at things from their side to, you know, grok that.”
Now it was Henley’s turn to grimace and mull it over. His eyes went totally blank for a spell.
“But it don’t matter how they see it,” he said, “is what I’m saying.”
Erin
Catawba, Virginia
1 year, 297 days after
We are geared up and ready to go, costumes and all.
Oh right. I never explained that part last night.
I got the idea after last time. Like I said, walking around the settlement as a person of the female persuasion felt a little like being a side of beef parading around in front of starving hyenas. Maybe it’s like that for anyone coming in, everyone sizing you up, trying to figure out where you belong in the pecking order. But I’m guessing the men don’t get catcalled.
Then when we were leaving Kristoff and Mia’s store, this big drunk guy cornered me. Kept demanding to know my name — which, looking back, almost seems funny to me now. That someone asking your name could somehow seem threatening, but it did. I ignored him, which was my first mistake. And then he was right on top of me, yanking my arm so he could spin me around and stick his stinking face in mine.
His breath reeked of booze and rotten teeth. I knew I should go for my gun or knife. But I hesitated for a split-second, because I was in Kristoff and Mia’s place, and it seemed rude or something to start a ruckus there.
Stupid.
See, my first mistake was trying to ignore the guy. That might be how we were told to deal with bullies in elementary school, and maybe it even worked. But that’s not how it works now. If you let someone cross a boundary even in the smallest way, let them think you’ll let the disrespect slide, you might as well slit your own throat. So when the guy first slurred out those words, asking my name, I should have turned around, looked him dead in the eye, and told him that my name was Miss None-of-your-goddamn-business. If he didn’t take the hint then, I should have already had my knife at the ready. Because being polite isn’t a thing anymore.
Mia’s the one that reminded me of that. She came out of nowhere and pressed the barrel of her AR-15 to the drunk guy’s temple and told him to get the fuck out of her store and not to come back. He let go of me real quick then, slinking out of the store with his hands raised in front of him protectively, because Mia hadn’t lowered the rifle.
As soon as he’d gone, she relaxed her grip on the gun and then turned her hard gaze on me.
“You get one of those, and only because you’re with Marissa. Understand?”
“What?”
She leaned in.
“I mean if you bring anymore trouble into my store—”
“But I didn’t do anything,” I protested, incredulous. “He attacked me.”
“Where the fuck do you think you are? I’m not your high school principal. I don’t give a shit who started it.”
Mia took another step closer so that her face was almost as close as the drunk man’s had been.
“I’m only going to tell you this once, because if I have to tell you more than that, you’re already a lost cause. Toughen the fuck up. No one is going to fight your battles for you. If you can’t fight them yourself, you shouldn’t be here.”
I still don’t know if she meant I shouldn’t be here as in Roanoke or just in general. I guess the advice applies either way.
Because she was right. Roanoke had gotten to me. Overwhelmed me with all the smells and noises and constant barrage of sensations. And I forgot the most important rule of the new world: Never let your guard down.
I’m almost embarrassed retelling that. It’s humiliating to think that Mia saw me as some waif that couldn’t defend myself. Because that isn’t how I see myself. Not now.
I’ve thought about it a lot since then, and I’m doing things different this time. I’ll be entering Roanoke armed with guns, knives, and a bad fucking attitude.
See, one thing I noticed is that Marissa didn’t get ogled in the settlement the same way I did. And I know she’s older, but it’s not like she’s some hideous hag. (I think I might have referred to her as a hag earlier, but I should be clear that is based purely on her personality.) The men still watched her, but they kept their glances surreptitious. Only from the corners of their eyes, when they could be sure she wasn’t looking. I think it’s something about the way she carries herself. She has a wicked case of Resting Bitch Face.
So I’ve been practicing. Watching Marissa, especially if she’s in one of her moods. She gets this almost imperceptible sneer on her face. It’s not even fully there, and yet one glance is enough to know you’d better stay out of her way.
Now that I think
about it, I should be glad I was with Marissa my first time at the settlement. If Izzy and I had wandered in there unprepared, we would have been eaten alive. And if Marcus had been with us… I don’t even want to think about that.
Anyway, I’ve had a few months now to chew on the idea of entering the settlement without wearing a giant sign that says EASY PICKINGS.
I started to think of all the badass chicks I remember from the movies. Trinity from The Matrix. Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Kate Beckinsale in Underworld.
Dark hair, dark clothes, dark makeup.
When I looked at it laid out — the black jeans, charcoal gray tank top, black leather jacket — it barely seemed like more than a particularly colorless outfit. But I swear it works. As I smeared the black eyeshadow around my eyes, I thought of it less as makeup and more as warpaint.
I thought it would feel silly, but it doesn’t. Maybe it’s just a placebo, but I can’t deny that it makes me feel tougher. More threatening. And so maybe my body language and demeanor follow suit. And it sends a message.
Do not fuck with me.
There’s definitely a line, though. I tried some black lipstick, but I couldn’t keep a straight face when I peered into the mirror. I think it strayed a little too far into mall goth territory. Even Marcus agreed that it looked ridiculous.
The last thing I did was wet my hair in the pond. Then I ran some pomade through with my hands, and pulled the whole mess back into a slick ponytail. I did the same for Izzy.
We studied ourselves in the mirror of the restaurant bathroom, and I have to say, I wouldn’t want to mess with us.
Although, Izzy was trotting around just now like we were getting ready to go trick-or-treating or something. I had to remind her that we weren’t playing dress-up.
“This is serious, Iz. Show me what face you’ll make if you catch someone staring at you.”
She had a big, goofy grin plastered on her face, so I thought she’d totally fail the exercise. But almost instantly, her lips curled down into a silent snarl.