Gone to Ground

by Cheryl Taylor

  “Why didn’t you choose to go to the APZ where there would be food and water and medical care?”

  “What is this, twenty questions?” Maggie felt frustration temper her voice and struggled to quell it. After a moment she continued more calmly. “I had some business friends that went into the APZ before my area was concentrated. They sent me a few text messages before the cell towers went down, and they told me that a lot of things were going on in the APZs that they didn’t trust. They didn’t think it was a safe place, and I had to agree from what I was hearing. Why, what do you know?”

  “Well, for one thing, I know your house is likely no longer standing, or if it is, it won’t be for long.”

  “What do you mean!” Maggie felt a deep tearing pain at the thought of her beautiful redwood and stone house tucked back unobtrusively into the ponderosa pines north of Prescott. All the memories left there, all the pictures and other items left from her marriage.

  “Ever since the survivors were brought into the Authorized Population Zones, teams of hand picked men, they called them annihilation teams, have been going out and razing the buildings left behind. They collect any items that can be reused or recycled, and the rest is bulldozed or burned or both.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Maggie’s frustration began to boil over anew. “Those are people’s homes, they own them. I know you said before it would be a long time before we could go home, but they can’t actually be destroying them.

  “Have you heard of eminent domain?”

  “Yes, that’s been in the news a lot lately. But there’s no way they can be claiming the right of eminent domain in this situation, is there? This is unbelievable.” Maggie could feel her anger reaching critical mass at all these questions and reminded herself to keep her voice low so that she didn’t wake Lindy or Mark.

  “It’s like this, Maggie. Shortly after the disease swept through this country, the administration found itself faced with some interesting choices. So many people died in the illness, or shortly afterward, and the hardest hit groups were many of the higher educated ones, the ones in healthcare, emergency services and education. The administration found themselves in a position where they could handpick the replacements, giving those replacements the information the administration wanted them to have.”

  Maggie nodded, aware that Mike had died because he wouldn’t leave his post and abandon the people in his care.

  “I’m guessing that you are well aware of the buzz that global warming has been making lately.”

  “Yes, you spoke of this earlier, when we were trimming the horses’ feet.”

  “There’s been a lot of pressure on the governments of the world to begin to reduce greenhouse gasses, carbon emissions and all the other things that have been contributing to the change in the climate. Many of the bigger countries have resisted making sweeping reforms, however, because it would possibly damage their economies, and more importantly, at least here in the United States, the people would strongly resist giving up any of their toys.”

  O’Reilly stopped to take a sip of his soda, swishing it around in his mouth and savoring the taste. After a couple of seconds, during which Maggie waited patiently, he continued. “Then this last administration was elected, and one of the platforms on which they campaigned was a ‘green agenda.’”

  Maggie nodded again. O’Reilly had touched briefly on this when they’d had their explosive conversation while working on the horse.

  “The problem still was, though, that the American people want to reduce greenhouse gasses without giving up any of the things they’ve come to see as their birth rights: The ATVs, the big cars, the energy consuming gadgets in their homes. Not only are they willing to continue lavishing energy upon the running of these things, but they don’t even take into consideration all the pollution released in their manufacture.

  “It was thought for awhile that if gas prices went up significantly, it might start people moving in the right direction, but even that really had little effect. Sure, the sales of large SUVs dropped for awhile, until auto manufacturers managed to come out with more fuel efficient models, but you still saw people on four wheelers and modified golf carts ripping up the forest trails. Just for the thrill of speed I guess. Heaven forbid they actually see nature on foot and get to know it. They would rather race through it, spewing as much noise and fumes as possible on the way.”

  “Okay, nature boy, I take it you really don’t like ATVs. I don’t care for them much myself, though Mark’s always wanted one. Let’s get on with the story. I want to know why my beautiful house is toast.”

  Too deep into his narrative to be hauled out by Maggie’s quip, he continued, expression becoming darker and stormier. “Funny thing is that, while there were some suspicions, no one actually realized that the real reason for the price increases wasn’t trouble in the Middle East, or storms in the gulf. It was actually manipulation right here under our noses.”

  Maggie started to object, but O’Reilly ignored her and continued on without stopping.

  “In addition to all of woes over the economy, the weather patterns began to change. It wasn’t really all that recently, starting what, nearly twenty years ago. Storms became more violent. Then drought took over places that had been used to provide a lot of food for our nation and others. People who previously thought of themselves as safe began dying in floods, tornadoes and hurricanes and then looking to the government for assistance once their communities were leveled or washed away. Then this flu bug hit and it was way more dangerous than anything that had been predicted, and the vaccine didn’t work. In fact, many of those vaccinated seemed to get the sickest.”

  Maggie started to attention at that. “What do you mean the vaccinated ones seemed to get the sickest?” He was right, though. It had been all over the news that the vaccine, which was made only at two or three labs around the world, hadn’t worked. The United States and Canada had been two of the last countries afflicted with the disease, and it had been thought that they had plenty of time to make sure that enough of the high risk population was vaccinated to limit its spread. That hadn’t happened, though. Something was wrong with the vaccine, and those vaccinated seemed to succumb the quickest.

  Mike, as a paramedic with frequent exposure, was vaccinated early on through his job. Maggie and Mark should have been on the list as well, as members of his family, but car troubles had caused them to miss their appointment at the doctor’s office. Then the vaccine supply ran dry and they were waiting on a new shipment, which never seemed to come. Finally the flu was upon them, and it seemed pointless to use a vaccine that was in short supply when they’d already been exposed. At the time Mike had gotten ill, Maggie had cursed herself for missing the appointment and putting Mark in harm’s way. But now, after hearing O’Reilly’s story, she began to wonder if missing that appointment had saved their lives.

  “Are you saying that someone tampered with the vaccine?” Her temper started to boil over.

  “I’m not saying anything like that. I don’t know if the vaccine was tampered with, whether it was contaminated, or if it was cow piss in a bottle made to look like a vaccine. I just don’t know. What I do know is that it didn’t work, and that we suffered devastating losses of professional personnel possibly due to either it, or to the people’s mistaken belief that the vaccine rendered them safe and thereby they weren’t as careful in their exposure as they should have been.

  “The disease came in waves, catching the people off guard the second and third times it came around, and that, combined with secondary infections, wiped out much of the population of the planet, hitting some countries harder than others. Follow that with a population that has been completely demoralized, especially in a country such as ours where we have always pretty much believed in our invulnerability, and you wind up with a high number of depressions and mental breakdowns that resulted in deaths and outright suicides.

  “Now in steps our administration, who has been living in relative saf
ety in some bunker somewhere, and they realize that an opportunity has presented itself. Meeting with the governments from around the world they come upon a strategy that will both care for the people left alive, and possibly begin to restore balance to the planet that has been disrupted by the wasteful consumption of the people living on it.”

  Maggie stared at her nearly empty bottle of soda, suddenly losing her taste for the sugary sweet liquid. “I think I need something stronger to drink,” she said. Looking up at O’Reilly, catching him watching her intently, she said, “Let me guess. They didn’t decide to call everyone to a peace circle and a ‘Global Lights Out Night’ to demonstrate the conservation of energy.”

  “No, it was actually a fairly simple plan. Concentrate the people into designated population zones, claiming that it was the only way to make sure that there was an even distribution of food, fresh water, and medical services. Then, using eminent domain, take all the remaining land and destroy all signs of human habitation, claiming that either criminals were using the buildings as command centers, or that testing had identified them as reservoirs of the virus. After all, there had already been three waves of the disease and they had to come from somewhere. It was likely that the people would believe that viruses, those sneaky little creatures, could hide in abandoned homes, waiting for an unsuspecting host to walk back in.

  “People who resisted concentration were to be either forcibly brought into the APZs, where ‘persuasion’ could be used to convince them of the necessity of the action, or they were to be eradicated as ‘terrorists.’”

  O’Reilly’s face grew, if anything, even more stormy, his eyes flooded with pain at unvoiced memories. “These people, they were called ghosts, and some ass with a sick sense of humor called the teams sent out to deal with them exorcism teams. After the first month or so, the orders changed. The only ones to be brought back were children young enough to be converted to this new way of life. Anyone else was to be killed.”

  A look of horror coursed across Maggie’s face as she looked at O’Reilly and realized that he had been part of this. No wonder his sleep was filled with nightmares. No wonder he had been so reluctant to confide in her what his life had been like prior to coming to Hideaway. Imagined images of mothers begging for their children’s lives, only to be cut down in front of those same children flickered though her mind and she wondered how she would be able to sleep tonight. Then another thought leaped into her mind.

  “How... how could you be a part of that, and how did you get away?”

  Pained by the look of revulsion on Maggie’s face, the clenched hands on the table, O’Reilly looked down at his own hands, unable to stand the sight of his haggard, haunted face reflected in her eyes.

  “You’ve got to understand, Maggie, when we were recruited, or assigned is more like it, to the Enforcers, we were given the same story as everyone else. That the APZs were the only way to make sure that all people were cared for. Most of us had served in some form of law enforcement or military, and we were used to following orders, even if we weren’t sure about them. And, hell, they were convincing. There’s no arguing that.

  “Then, when the annihilation teams began going out, we were again told it was because of the virus, or the crime. It was unfortunate, but there it was. Eminent domain. The government taking private property for the good of the people. If someone in the APZ happened to see the smoke, we were to either tell them that a hotbed of the virus had been discovered, or more likely that ghosts had set a wildfire in order to try and get hold of a supply train. Since those things were happening on a regular basis, we were never entirely sure when the story was the truth.

  “The people were shell shocked, devastated, demoralized. They were looking for anyone to take charge, and we were the ones who were put in that position. For the most part, we believed in our jobs wholeheartedly.”

  “The first few exorcisms I went on, the targets were groups of men, bent on raiding our supply trucks. I didn’t enjoy killing them, but I couldn’t let the people in my charge go hungry. It was necessary, just as my using my service weapon was occasionally necessary when I was a sheriff’s deputy. Then one night my team was sent to an encampment of ghosts just outside of Oatman, Arizona, north of Kingman. We took them at dawn, when they were all asleep. They hadn’t even posted sentries.”

  O’Reilly abruptly rose to his feet and began stalking around the room, hands clenched at his sides. The pain in his voice became more pronounced, if anything, and he spoke more quietly as if fighting to control his emotions. Then, as he was passing the couch where Lindy was sleeping, he stopped, and stood, looking down at her.

  “This band of ghosts wasn’t a criminal group. They were only trying to make it on their own. They weren’t asking or taking anything from anyone.” His voice became even softer and he reached out to smooth the hair off Lindy’s sweaty cheek. “There were a couple families, including children, and the team wiped them out.” He closed his eyes at the memory, apparently unable to erase the sight from his mind.

  Opening his eyes again, he looked back at Maggie still seated at the table. “I tried to stop them. I grabbed the gun from the man nearest me, but it made no difference. And I just couldn’t bring myself to open fire on my comrades myself. When it was all said and done, nine people died, including five children, and I was reassigned to a job at a security post in the APZ for my refusal to follow orders.

  “They couldn’t just let me go, see. I knew too much. So I was kept under close surveillance but also given a job to do while they waited to see how badly I was broken.” He took a deep breath before he continued, and Maggie realized again how much recounting this story was costing him emotionally.

  “While I was working there, in a place they called the Nursery, where all the orphaned children were kept and taught the new green gospel, I met a young girl named Christina. Her father had been a sociologist before he was killed for ‘inciting a riot.’ Since I was the only one manning the security station, I was often able to visit her while she was being kept in isolation for talking about what she’d learned from her father. It was there that I started to realize how far the governmental conspiracy to control us really went.

  “You see, I had believed the story that people needed to be gathered together in order to make sure that everything was distributed fairly. That the social order would break down quickly in the face of a disaster of such magnitude. After all, there have been stories of other disasters and the looting and crime that followed. It seems, however that some of that has been blown out of proportion. Back at the beginning of the 21st century, the government took on a ‘command and control policy’ toward disaster management, actually making FEMA part of Homeland Security. This action turned disaster response into a more militaristic operation than it had ever been before, even when the disaster had nothing to do with the military, terrorists or anything of that type.”

  Maggie was watching him carefully now. She remembered 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, and all the other weather related disasters that followed. She also remembered studying in school how following 9/11 the community of New York had organized evacuations and searches, but how during Hurricane Katrina many people had died due to the failure of the social structure.

  “The president at the time said that the results of research following Hurricane Katrina indicated that the command and control method was the optimum way to handle a disaster of this scale. According to Christina’s father, though, many sociologists thought that the administration at the time had reached the wrong conclusion from the research: Had interpreted it incorrectly. Christina said that her father and others believed that it was better to provide outside assistance to the small communities, because they felt the research showed that these communities could help and heal themselves much more effectively than if the government came in and took over. Sure, it would have been difficult to reach everyone considering how widely spread this disaster was, but in many scientists’ opinions that would have been preferable
to the APZs. Her father was talking out against concentration when he was gunned down.” O’Reilly stopped, head bowed, then looked up at Maggie again, obviously almost at the breaking point.

  “She was such a brave little girl. She reminded me so much of my daughter.” He stopped, unable to go on.

  Maggie’s eyes opened wide in shock and she wanted to ask him a thousand questions, but knew it wasn’t the time. Soon, but not now with the wounds on his spirit so freshly torn open. So instead she simply asked, “What happened to Christina?”

  “She’s still at the APZ. It was a miracle I got out without being captured, and who knew what I would find when I got here. I couldn’t expose her to that. At least at the APZ she’s fed and clothed and has a roof over her head. Medical care if she needs it. She’s smart. She’ll learn to play the game.”

  “Was it what Christina told you that made you decide to run?”

  “No, though that was part of it. I started to realize that much of what we’d been doing was wrong, though I still believed that the administration had just simply deluded itself into believing that this was the only way to handle things. Government agencies are good at that you know; putting on blinkers and not evaluating other ideas. Only moving forward on the one in front of them.

  “No, what really pushed me into moving was a shear accident. I received an interdepartmental envelope one day, originating from Central Control. It should have been a census of children staying at the APZ, but somehow a copy of a set of memos from the Chinese government, the British government, and several others had become mixed in with the census pages. Somebody in the Central Control office screwed up royally. These memos all outlined the progress their countries were making with consolidating their populations and returning land to its original condition.