5 Years After

by Richard Correll

  “Because of those things?”

  “Because of the price of gas,” Tom smiled.

  The engineer nodded with a grin. “No whistle it is, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Tom quickly withdrew and got out of the man’s way. Heading back to his seat, he wondered what people thought of anyone from Ottawa these days, probably not much.

  The last five years had seen a remarkable reversal in election turnout. While the national elections plummeted to just twenty-nine percent voter turnout, local election participation had skyrocketed to an astounding eighty-six percent. In crisis, the world shrinks and all you care about is keeping the lights on and the family fed. These days that was a mayor’s job. Provincial elections fell in the sixty to seventy percent category depending on the issues. But the message was clear: Ottawa might as well have been on another planet.

  As the train rolled through the black tapestry of the countryside, he found it hard to argue with the new logic. We could send a fact-finding mission to this community or that. But what good did it really do? The local and civic leaders had more of a grasp of the situation than we ever could. Local solutions seemed at least for now the most pragmatic. There was an idea from Regina that came to mind quickly, using abandoned cars scattered around their community as shelters. A person finding themselves pursued would simply open the car door and climb in. Then lock things up behind them. Since the batteries were kept charged, the person would then lean on the car horn, warning others of the ghoul’s presence.

  He remembered how in the beginning countries around the world had been convinced that Canada would ride the storm out with the fierce winters on our side. The world had visions of the dead trapped in ice or blood freezing in their veins from frigid temperatures.

  The truth had manifested itself in a warm winter. Environment Canada would have told us that Canadian winters were becoming more temperate every year because of global warming.

  Besides, many Canadians lived close to the US border. Southern Ontario, where most Canadians lived was on parallel with Northern California. The delusion was to the point of being bizarre.

  Those who did move north discovered a completely different way of life, one that many were simply unprepared for. Fashionable leather boots might be great for a Toronto winter, but in Churchill and Thompson they meant frostbite. That led to amputations, which led to death, which led to a new army of the dead north of sixty.

  Streetlights became visible as the train approached Ottawa, cutting into the realm of darkness. As they passed a crossing, a lone ghoul stood in the middle of the road. Tom only saw his face as the engine passed by. He seemed to be regarding the train with curiosity. Perhaps a grain of memory of who he was once stood in the way of instinct for a brief moment. The whistle stayed silent.

  They passed the Ottawa Centre for Science and Technology. Long since lost to the invaders, it was a dark shadow among shadows. He remembered it was near Bourassa Street. The fact that a street named after a famous supporter of the Meech Lake Accord movement was a dead end was mute proof of Ottawa’s unusual sense of humor.

  He packed his laptop and notes away in his briefcase and took one more sip of the coffee that had long since gone cold and prepared for the night ahead. His next meeting would be a status report with General Clay Davidson. Tom was respectful of the man’s time as he defended the pockets of government buildings in Ottawa. They met every few weeks. It had been stunning to see how Davidson was aging years in the span of weeks. Too many demands and too few resources were slowly taking their toll.

  Tom grabbed his overhead bag and headed for the exit. After years of travel in government service he had become an expert at packing lightly. While others were still lined up for baggage, he was on his way. He was greeted by an RCMP officer with a C8 assault rifle slung over his soldier.

  “Welcome to Ottawa, sir,” he said professionally. “Right this way.”

  Tom sat in the passenger seat of a quad cab late model truck that immediately started up as the door slammed. The RCMP officer did not initiate conversation as they drove over the Queensway on Belfast and turned left on to Coventry toward Ottawa Stadium. The truck quickly pulled up to an entrance and Tom popped out without a second thought and hurried into the former home of Ottawa’s Triple A baseball team.

  On the playing field there was a Bell 206 Jet Ranger helicopter and a much larger twin-bladed Chinook. He quickened his pace to the Jet Ranger trainer as its blades began to turn and the motor came to life with the familiar whine of a helicopter engine. He glanced up to the fence line and saw several dozen snipers actively acquiring and picking off targets from cherry pickers. He jumped into the passenger seat, quickly buckled up and watched the ground recede. Before he knew it, they were heading towards downtown, crossing the Rideau River at a very quick pace.

  “Sorry for the fast take off, sir.” The pilot apologized. “They like us out of there as quickly as possible.”

  “I understand,” Tom nodded. “The noise really attracts them.”

  “Yes, sir, it sure as hell does.”

  Flying over the now dark Old Town Hall was the first indication of how much the landscape had changed in the few weeks he was away. There were few fires burning but the dust in the air was palatable. The pilot flew high and chose an approach vector that followed the Rideau River and then banked sharply left toward the Parliament buildings. Tom had been on a fact-finding mission for several weeks, collecting information on the progress of their situation. He was supposed to have presented his report to the Prime Minister while he was meeting the US Vice President and the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The change in those plans was just about as dramatic as what he was witnessing below.

  “How long has it been this way?” Tom asked, keeping his tone even so as not to over-modulate the microphone on his headset.

  “Couple of weeks now,” The pilot spoke with a slight francophone accent. “We thought we had a good defensive line with the Rideau River. But, one night they just came out of the water and surprised the hell out of us.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, sir,” The pilot continued. “We fell back to the Rideau Canal. That seems safe for now. But, the damage is done.”

  “The train station?” Tom asked

  “Yes, sir,” The pilot nodded as the helicopter banked toward the Parliament buildings. “It’s surrounded on all sides and cut off from the rest of us.”

  “The RCMP Officers’ college is nearby,” Tom observed.

  “That’s right, sir.” The pilot kept his eyes on the landing spot he had chosen on the front lawn of the Parliament buildings. “The RCMP are able to keep the station open for now.”

  The helicopter landed on the front lawn with barely a nudge. The pilot kept the rotors turning as Tom slipped off the headset, unbuckled himself and opened the door to leave. He nodded his thanks to the pilot and kept his head low as he proceeded to the Parliament buildings. The Bell 206 was airborne and heading back to the train station as quickly as possible.

  The huge marble entranceway seemed a duller grey than he remembered, but it occurred to Tom that not all the lights were on. He only had time for a quick look around before a page recognized him and led him up the stairway to the meeting room. The hallways seemed a bit darker as well. Finally, his curiosity got the best of him.

  “Why is it so dark?” he queried.

  “Many of the maintenance staff have not shown up for work,” the page, a boy of about nineteen answered. “The ones who are still around are having a hard time keeping up.” Pages on the Hill had an incredible talent for silence. The young man opened the door without a sound. Tom stepped into a meeting in progress and took a chair in the back of the room as the speaker droned on. The door soundlessly closed behind him.

  “I just don’t understand this,” a minister was saying. “How can this be happening?”

  “It’s all a numbers game, sir” Tom heard General Clay Davidson patiently answering. “I have four-thousand tro
ops spread out over three areas. “

  “Versus how many of the enemy?”

  “An educated guess would be about a hundred-and-fifty- to a hundred-and-seventy-thousand.” Clay was being deadpan, hoping the numbers would speak for themselves.

  “So, the idea of a counterattack would be…?” A female voice was talking now. Tom thought she was the education minister.

  “Suicide, Madam Minister,” he said, completing her sentence. “It would leave us with no reserves and the hostiles would be here within hours.”

  He listened to the back-and-forth conversation as he cleared his mind. Tom was silently preparing for his turn with Clay as he glanced about the meeting room. It was paneled beautifully by craftsmen long since dead. The desks optimized comfort and classic Victorian style. They were ornate, wooden and very old. The trappings of an empire that had long since taken its final walk into history.

  The three MPs let themselves out after a few more minutes. Clay rearranged files in front of him and looked back to the corner of the room where Roberts was sitting. He nodded to the General and stood up to approach him, his feet softly treading on the thick carpet.

  “Your turn,” the General said sarcastically, playing with a folder to his right.

  “How have you been, Clay?” Roberts seated himself in front of the General.

  “Shitty,” Clay said in a low tone, “How about you?”

  “Shitty, I guess.” Roberts nodded. “Did you get the email I sent?”

  “Yes.” His tired eyes finally looked up. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I love new ideas.”

  “But…?”

  “We’re at a tipping point here, Tom.” His red-tinged eyes met Tom’s. This was all business. Tom leaned back and prepared himself for a myriad of demands, requests and whatever. Clay was a capable general. If he needed something it was probably critical.

  “A tipping point,” Tom repeated to try to follow along.

  “It’s time we considered cutting our losses here.” Clay’s tone was straight, honest and even-tempered.

  “Are you talking about abandoning Ottawa?” Tom asked.

  “I am talking about abandoning Ottawa.” It was a statement.

  “This is the capital of Canada.” Tom took his glasses off and let them hang in his right hand. “We can’t do that.”

  “Yes, we can and we should.” Clay observed. “What is in Ottawa that’s so important?”

  “The government,” Tom kept his voice low but he was incredulous.

  “….And?” The General deadpanned his question for effect.

  “…And what?” Tom’s hands played in front of him, palms up, a visual question mark.

  “There is nothing else here,” Clay’s calm baritone lent a sense of believability to the discussion. “We can move the government.”

  “Move it,” Tom said, turning to his right and looked out into space. He thought of the events at Pearson. Getting the PM to fly into an overrun airport and now this? He decided to listen. He was going to play along but his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Where would we move it?”

  “Someplace far easier to defend with far fewer hostiles,” Clay reached for the file he had placed to his right earlier. “I was thinking Charlottetown.”

  “You know what the PM will say,” Tom countered.

  “What will the PM say?” Clay asked tiredly. He already knew the answer.

  “He will remind us that PEI has only four seats in parliament and four in the senate.” Tom rhymed off the answer. “If we moved to Charlottetown, we’d lose Ontario in the next election and lose period.”

  “Why does it always have to be politics with this guy?” Clay was clearly frustrated.

  “Because he’s a politician,” Tom explained. Still, he was sympathetic to the general’s point of view. “We have to pick a spot in Ontario.”

  “London?” Clay clearly hadn’t picked the city out of the air. He had a list.

  “What is in London right now?” Tom asked.

  “Most of the major corporations and banks moved there after the evacuation of Toronto.” He was looking at notes and then added, “The TSX is there as well.”

  “Okay. What else?” It sounded promising.

  “A large airport for dignitaries coming and going,” He had put the sheet back down on the table and was looking at Tom with tired eyes. “Also it has one of our bigger military bases and it fits in with a new defensive strategy I have been working on.”

  “Go ahead, Clay.” Tom leaned back in his chair and put his glasses on. He thought of his conversation with Maggie Hunter. Did he trust Clay? Suddenly, he wasn’t sure. He had known the man for years. That would have been enough before. But now, one event had created shadows everywhere. Is this what paranoia feels like? He wondered.

  “I have a list of a hundred or so essential locations that must be defended.” The General had leaned forward in his chair. It was time to make his point. “I need to cut down a little bit on those.”

  “How?” Tom felt his right eyebrow furrowed in curiosity.

  “We try and double them up.” He laid his palms flat on the table.

  “How do you mean?”

  “In Kitchener-Waterloo-Guelph-Cambridge, we have hospitals, manufacturing sites and farmland.” He counted off the resources on his fingertips. “Since they are all in one place, one soldier or army group can defend them all.”

  “All right,” He was intrigued. “Go on.”

  “London,” he said the name of the place again, “Business and hospitals. Also, the Ford plant in St. Thomas has been re-opened and retooled for ammunition manufacturing.”

  “Putting the PM there would help free up troops?” Tom was following along with the logic. But why did Clay keep bringing up London?

  “Exactly,” The General pointed at Tom in agreement. “It would free up the Ottawa troops to defend other places.”

  “Like where?” While he had the general he might as well get as much information as possible.

  “Sarnia, for example…”

  “Sarnia?” Tom almost laughed. “What is in Sarnia that’s so important?”

  “Sarnia is the hub for most natural gas pipelines in North America.” Clay’s dry voice withered the smile from Tom’s face. “If we lose Sarnia, we freeze in the dark. It’s that simple.”

  “Sorry,” Tom apologized. “I didn’t know.”

  “No need to,” the General calmly answered. “Before this thing started, I didn’t know it either.”

  “But I don’t think the PM will agree to Sarnia.”

  “There aren’t enough hotels for everyone anyway.” Clay calmly answered. Yes, he’d thought about it. “There are some other places.”

  “Like what?” Tom wanted to hear them all before meeting with the PM.

  “Kingston,” Clay continued, his large hands finding a sheet of paper in the folder. “Strong military police presence. Prince Edward County is a must-protect area for its farmland and I have engineers trying to convert the marinas into a larger port facility.”

  “Kingston sounds like a strong candidate,” Tom thought out loud. Then he added, “London looks pretty good as well.”

  “There are a few others.” The general listed them off. “Barrie, Thunder Bay…”

  “But none of them could support and house so many at such a short notice?” Tom was starting to grasp the immensity of a government move. “How long would this take?”

  “Most of the information, files and such have already been dispersed around the country. We’ve been doing that since this whole thing started,” Clay explained in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “So,” Tom persisted, “How long?”

  “We could do it in a few days,” Clay answered.

  “How the hell are we going to do that in a few days?” Tom’s eyes grew wide. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “Ninety per cent of the MPs are not here. Lets’ be real: this is a war zone,” Clay reminded him. “The population is gone. Some are bivouacked at o
ur armed forces range in Nepean.”

  “We don’t have the Senate to worry about,” Tom offered and got a nod and a smirk from Davidson. When the situation had become fluid in Ottawa a year ago, the Senate had started to melt away. First, one or two members did not show up, then more and more. Until the chambers began to be used for storage and accommodations for soldiers, pages and staff. Even disaster had its upsides.

  “When you come right down to it,” Clay had made his point and he knew it. “There really aren’t that many people left to move.”

  Tom didn’t mean to stand up but he did anyway and walked slowly to the back of the room and then back again. There was no purpose for him to do it except to burn off nervous energy. He poured himself a glass of water from a carafe and strode back toward Clay. Halfway across the room he decided to be straight with the man he had known for years. He didn’t want to lose a friend but deception was not an option.

  “There are some things I did not put in my report to you,” Tom began. “We need to talk about them.”

  “Okay,” Clay looked at Tom and crossed his legs to lean back in his chair.

  “General Jay was personally giving the approach vector to the PM’s plane,” Tom explained slowly.

  “Yeah, he always loved the drama,” Clay‘s voice became acid at the memory of Jay.

  “While he was doing that,” Tom felt his voice go cold. “The airport was being overrun.”

  “Overrun?”

  “Overrun,” Tom nodded. “If the PM’s plane had landed he wasn’t going to get out of there.”

  ‘Jesus.” Clay’s headed rotated slightly as he was trying to grasp the situation. “Why?”

  “The best explanation yet is that it was a coup-d’état,” Tom said the words without emotion, a whisper.

  “By Jay?” Clay’s voice raised in disbelief.

  “He would have played a small part in it.”

  “Good,” Clay calmed down. “That guy couldn’t organize a two-car parade.”

  “Exactly,” Tom was now a good eight feet from Clay. Sipping his water and trying to gauge the man in front of him.