Uprising: Book 2 in the After the Fall Series

by David Nees

  “Anne and I are going to go to the hospital to see if we can get Adam vaccinated,” Jason said. “We should be able to be back in time for the negotiations.”

  “So if you’re late I’ll have to do it?” Tom asked.

  “I think you’ll handle things just fine.”

  “All right,” Tom replied. “You go. They’re still checking over our lists back at City Hall or wherever. No one seems to be in a hurry to stop eating. See to your boy.”

  “We’ll be back as soon as we can.” He took Anne’s arm and they headed out of the parking lot.

  At the edge of the trading area they came upon more of the militia. They were positioned behind saw horses set up in the street that formed a barricade blocking off the entrances to the parking lot. Two militia members stopped them as they began to walk down the street.

  “You can’t go down there. You’re restricted to the trading area.”

  Jason and Anne stopped. Jason looked at the man in surprise. “We’re going to the hospital. I know where it is. We need to get our baby checked out while we’re here in town.”

  “Sorry. I can’t let you leave the area. Those are my orders.”

  Jason felt his anger rising. This was another affront and he had no more patience left for it. Anne, seeing Jason’s agitation, put her hand on his arm. “Don’t argue with him. We have our baby with us. We’ll go back and get this worked out with Kevin.” She gripped his arm hard.

  Jason gritted his teeth and nodded. This was not the time or place to make a scene. Without another word they turned away, back to the parking lot and the festivities.

  Kevin looked up when Anne and Jason walked back to where he was sitting with Catherine. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “We’re told we can’t go to the hospital. It seems we are all confined to the parking lot,” Anne said. Jason said nothing. Kevin could see that he was struggling to control his rage.

  Kevin jumped up “Let me get to the bottom of this.” He strode off mumbling to himself about how everything was conspiring to make this day a failure.

  After a moment of plowing through the crowd of people eating or inspecting the farm goods with great interest and enthusiasm, he found Frank and Charlie standing with Joe and his bodyguards. The bodyguards stiffened as Kevin stepped right past them.

  “What the hell is going on?” he yelled in Frank’s face, heedless of startled onlookers. “First you want to confiscate their weapons, and now I find people can’t leave the area. Are you deliberately trying to sabotage this day? Because you’re doing a damn good job of it.”

  Frank stepped back. “What are you talking about?”

  “Jason and his wife just found out they can’t leave the area. They want to go to the hospital to get their baby checked. This is outrageous.”

  “Look, we can’t have these people running all around town. Their business is here, and here is where they should stay. They aren’t here to sightsee.”

  “Everything you’ve done so far has been insulting to these people. Do you get that?”

  “I get that they don’t seem to want to follow our rules. They’ve been pretty clear about that. We can work with them, but they have to respect our rules.”

  “Is that a new rule now?” Kevin said. “We confine visitors to specific areas of town? I seemed to have missed that in the manual.”

  “You can be as sarcastic as you want, but we don’t want them running all over town. Isn’t that right, Charlie?”

  Charlie was slow to respond. “Well,” he said finally to Kevin, “Frank and I talked about it, but I wasn’t aware that we made a decision. Apparently Frank thought we did and informed the militia of the fact.”

  “So you are not in charge?” Kevin asked.

  “I’m in charge of the police, and we work alongside of the militia, but Frank is the direct head of that group. You know that.”

  “Yeah, I know that responsibility gets passed around when it’s convenient. Look, I’m not going to argue with either of you. I’m going to transport these people to the hospital myself. If you don’t want an embarrassing scene, better tell your militia to not get in my way.” He turned on his heel and walked away.

  Jason and Anne were standing where Kevin had left them. Catherine had joined them. “I’ll take you to the hospital,” Kevin announced.

  “I’m going with you,” Catherine said.

  “You stay with Sarah,” Anne said.

  “She’ll be fine. She doesn’t need me to babysit her.”

  Anne gave her daughter a stern look. “You are to stay near her and don’t let anything happen. Things are getting weird enough without something happening to my girls.

  Catherine looked back at her mother with an angry face, but reluctantly agreed.

  “We’ll be back before you know it,” Kevin said to his fiancée.

  After he had dropped Jason, Anne, and the baby off at the hospital, Kevin drove straight to his headquarters. He stomped into Captain Roper’s office. “Captain, you’ve got to get over to the trading area—”

  “I’m getting ready to head over there now.” The captain gave him a pleasant look. “How’s it going?”

  “Okay, in spite of the city,” Kevin said with great emphasis. “Frank and Charlie seem to have done everything they can to screw this up…from the beginning.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Right from the start, the city started making up rules I didn’t know about and springing them on the farmers. If I hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t be having the trading day, just a barbecue celebrating nothing.”

  Roper sighed and sat back. “Tell me about it.”

  Kevin proceeded to fill him in on the day’s events.

  “Look, you’re the commanding officer here. Maybe you can talk some sense into these bozos. They won’t listen to me. They seem obsessed with showing the farmers who’s boss. It’s as though they resent that these people are not under their control.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Roper said, getting up and grabbing his hat.

  The three nurses doted on baby Adam taking turns holding him. Watching them, Jason wondered how many medical staff were still at the hospital. He had seen no one outside and few others inside. There were glimpses of figures lying in beds through half-open doors. The halls had an empty, untidy look. The three women all seemed tired with fatigue showing around their eyes, but there was something else…

  “We have some doses of DTP vaccination,” one of the nurses said. “Let me find Dr. Morgan, she needs to authorize the shot.” She headed down the corridor, while the two older nurses continued to play with Adam.

  A few minutes later a woman in a white coat walked up. “I’m Dr. Morgan, Janet Morgan. I remember hearing about you last year.” She shook hands with Anne and Jason as they introduced themselves, then she turned to the nurses and took Adam into her arms, looking at him carefully. “Looks like your son is thriving on the farm. Are you able to nurse him?”

  “I can nurse him just fine,” Anne replied. “Our diet is actually quite varied and healthy, so I have no problem producing milk.”

  Dr. Morgan turned to the two nurses, “Gwen, you and Cecily go over to the north ward. It’s due for a walk,” she said. Dr. Morgan returned her attention to Anne. “I’m so glad to hear that. It sounds like you’re doing better in the area of food than we are here in town.”

  “What do you mean?” Jason asked.

  The doctor paused and grinned oddly at him over Adam’s shoulder. “Tell me, do I look thin to you?”

  She did. Come to think of it, so had the nurses.

  She laughed softly at his expression. “You don’t have to answer. I can tell from your expression. You see we have a limited diet. Mostly soups and stews with anything that the food teams have been able to collect. Everyone stays hungry, but at least no one is starving now. Today is a very special day, with you coming to town. It’s like an extra meal for us.” Her face clouded, and a concerned look came into her eyes. �
��Roberta should be back with our plates by now. I hope she didn’t have any trouble getting our servings…”

  “The people we saw at the meet,” Anne said. “So well-dressed, I didn’t even think—”

  “Nobody’s having trouble fitting into their old favorite dress this year,” Dr. Morgan said, her smile back. She handed the baby back to Anne. “Though I think people are getting tired of the look.” The first nurse returned and spoke briefly with the doctor; she looked irritated and asked a couple of quiet questions, then turned back to them. “We have some of the DTP vaccine, so I’ll authorize one for your son. We should have some MMR shots left, but apparently we can’t find them. The baby should have that as well.”

  “Can you explain these?” Jason asked. “I’m new to this parenting.”

  “Sure. DTP stands for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. MMR stands for measles, mumps and rubella.”

  “If you can give Adam the DTP vaccine, we’ll come back for the other one. Do you think you’ll find it?” Anne asked.

  “We’ll make sure we find it,” Dr. Morgan said. The nurse flinched at her tone.

  “It’s not easy to make trips to town,” Jason said. “It’s expensive in terms of time and fuel.”

  “I understand. There’s no rush, although I wouldn’t wait months. Just come back when you can combine the trip with something else you have to do. I’ll make sure to keep one dose available for you.”

  “Thank you so much,” Anne said with a smile.

  “Great. Now if you’ll just follow Laura here, she’ll give your baby his inoculation.” Anne nodded gratefully, and the embarrassed nurse led her away. Jason would have followed as well, but a look from Dr. Morgan stopped him. The doctor waited until they were alone in the hall.

  “What I’m doing here has to remain secret. No one can know. None of my nurses are going to say anything.”

  “You mean with the vaccinations?” Jason said, surprised. She nodded. “Well, I…don’t think we’ve said anything about that specifically. Just that we wanted to get Adam checked out.” He wondered uneasily what Kevin had said. “Are the vaccines that precious?”

  “Well, yes…even though we’re not seeing many pregnancies, I don’t have a free hand with supplies. We’ve gotten a small increase in births since your story came out last year. As things settle down, people seem to be getting less worried.” She grabbed Jason’s arm and leaned closer to him, lowering her voice. “There’s a lot of fear in town. It’s gotten worse over the past year. When I say I don’t have a free hand, it’s not just paperwork. If anyone in authority knew I gave you the vaccine, I could be jailed, my ration card reduced…or worse.”

  “What do you mean, ‘or worse’?”

  The doctor looked around, then walked them further along the corridor, away from one of the patient rooms. She continued in a low voice. “People have disappeared. People who crossed the authorities, or who the authorities think crossed them. Sometimes it’s not clear what happened.” A look of anger or concern crossed her face. “You must understand, people don’t just disappear nowadays. Everyone is pretty much accounted for with the militia in control. All the food is centralized, so we all have to be registered—to have a ration card—in order to eat. And if you don’t show up at your food center, you’re not eating. The only way you could disappear is if you left town…or if something happened to you.”

  “You sure they just didn’t decide to leave? I did two years ago.”

  “And leave their families behind?”

  Jason had no response. The doctor went on. “And I’ve heard that sometimes the families disappear as well. Neighbors talk about people coming at night and taking them away. Some people won’t talk about it at all.”

  “Do the authorities know this? Has anyone told them?”

  “It is the authorities. At least that’s what everyone thinks. No one’s talking…because they’re afraid. Nobody fully trusts the police, and they certainly don’t trust the militia. Look, last year one of our doctors was helping Lieutenant Cameron collect some supplies for your baby’s birth. Well, he started to complain about how things were being run. Asking why we couldn’t have more freedom of expression, freedom of movement. I heard him. Others heard him as well and now he’s gone. We don’t know what happened to him…where he went.”

  She continued after giving Jason a moment to absorb what she had said. “In addition to that, the authorities are also taking the children away. I don’t mean secretly. This is official policy.”

  “Taking the children?” Jason said in shock.

  “Separating them from their parents. They’re being kept in a separate building downtown. The word is the place is set up like a boarding school. It was started for orphans from the initial chaos after the EMP attack. Now it’s used to free parents to work on rebuilding essential systems in the city. But many of us think they’re indoctrinating the kids.”

  He stared at her. “What?”

  “Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Listen. The only times parents can see their kids is on weekends, and not always then. But the word is that if the parents have done something wrong, crossed the authorities somehow, they get assigned to work the weekends. And those parents may never get to see their kids.”

  “Doctor…” Jason tried to make his tone very diplomatic. “I just saw kids playing back where we parked the convoy. I was looking right at them.”

  She nodded. “They’re kids whose parents are not in trouble with authorities. They’re let out for today. For this big happy day City Hall wants to bestow upon us all. But you can be sure there are some kids still being shut up in the school.

  “You said indoctrination. You think they’re trying to turn the kids against their parents?”

  “Or they’re using the kids as leverage over the parents. Maybe both. Who knows what those in power are trying to do. But there’s a pattern here. A disturbing one when added to how they’re controlling the rest of our lives. It’s like living in a police state.”

  “What about the Army? Can’t they help? Lieutenant Cameron is an honest officer. I can personally vouch for him.”

  She shook her head. “The Army is window dressing. Showing everyone we’re still in the U. S. of A. so everything’s fine. But how many are even in town anymore? A bunch left early this spring. There may be only thirty or fewer left. They’re so reduced in number that they can’t really do anything. And no one’s sure we can trust them.”

  “They may be few in number, but I’m told they’re in contact with the colonel who left this spring. Maybe they could get him back here to clean things up.”

  The woman shook her head in doubt. She closed her eyes and ran her hands over her face. After a moment she looked up at him and smiled tiredly. “Please keep what I’ve said to yourself. Don’t talk to anyone. You never know who might be an informant and you could get me and my nurses in trouble. I just want someone outside of the city to know things are not good here.”

  “I’ll keep this quiet, but I don’t know what I can do about it.”

  The doctor nodded. “I don’t know either. But you’re like a hero to many in town…what you did in killing Big Jacks. People see in you the freedom and independence they’re missing here.

  “I’m no hero. I just did…we all just did what was needed to save our lives, protect our families.”

  ‘You’ve become more than that to people in town.”

  “I’m not some liberator. My focus is on my family and on the valley.”

  “Well I want someone outside the city to know, and you’re the best person to tell. My nurse has probably have been telling your wife and daughter a similar tale. There are bribes sometimes used to get people to follow official policies, and, if that’s not enough, coercion. Never outright threats, but the way things are said, you get the idea you better go along. And there are informants all around. No one’s sure who to trust.” She stepped back, “With all that said things are getting better. We get regular meals now, as I said. No looting
, almost no crime or gangs stealing. And the people in charge are working on projects that will be good for us.”

  “Like what?”

  “Getting the electricity back on. That’ll be a big help. And improving sanitation. I’m grateful for all of that. I’m just worried that we’re heading down a very bad path.”

  “Again, I don’t know how I can help,” Jason said.

  Dr. Morgan smiled at him. “I don’t know either, but it helps to let someone outside know my concerns.”

  Chapter 12

  ___________________________________

  T hey didn’t have to wait long before Kevin arrived in the Humvee. “Did you get all the vaccinations done?” he asked as they drove back through town to the trading area.

  “No, we have to come back again. They couldn’t find one of them,” Anne replied.

  “Would it be possible to see other parts of the town, maybe the other food centers?” Jason asked. His curiosity was peaked from his conversation with the doctor.

  Kevin looked at Jason in the rearview mirror. “We’ve got time?”

  Jason nodded.

  They soon drove up to another large parking lot. More people were at this one than had been at the convoy site. A stage of sorts had been erected at one end. It appeared to be made of lengths of metal scaffold tubing joined together with wood planks attached on top. It stood about five feet high with a set of stairs at one end. It looked to be a place regularly used to make announcements or hold meetings. Workers busily tended a row of mismatched grills from which rose the mouth-watering aroma of grilled pork. A gaggle of kids on the sidewalk were being coached through a carnival-like game of tossing softballs into a series of buckets.

  They got out of the Humvee.

  “Let’s look for someone in charge,” Kevin said.