After the Shift: The Complete Series

by Grace Hamilton

  Sitting, as well as the shutting down of the lights and the music, had helped Nathan a lot. The pain when he breathed was still front and center, but being at rest was a vast improvement. “I don’t need… a bed, Caleb. We just… we just…”

  Speaking was proving to be a problem, however, as catching enough breath to form words was still something Nathan would have to work at, taking account of the reduced capacity of his lungs.

  “Nonsense, Nate… I may call you ‘Nate,’ mayn’t I?”

  Nathan nodded and Caleb barreled on, “Diminutive forms are much more friendly, don’t you think?”

  Nathan didn’t have enough breath to answer, and luckily Lucy, Tommy, and Donie, supporting Dave, trooped into the room so that he didn’t have to. Dave’s face was creased with pain. And he was favoring his shattered arm as best he could, but at least he was standing.

  Free and Lucy held their guns in a way that wasn’t necessarily threatening, but their fingers weren’t far away from the triggers. They had met situations which had gone south far too quickly for them to not be automatically on edge when entering a new domain. Especially one as odd as Caleb’s Bar.

  Free looked around with some astonishment, and Lucy’s greedy eyes took in all of the enhancements that had been made to the place, nodding with approval. “Nice place you have here, Caleb,” she said as her eyes came back around to the white-coated, dapper little man. “Now, what can you offer a nice girl in a place like this?”

  But Caleb had already zeroed in on Dave and come forward to meet him. Dave looked like he would fall down if Tommy and Donie didn’t keep holding him up, and so Caleb settled Dave down on a bench on the opposite side from where Nathan was sitting. Then he peered at the bloody bandage Lucy had fashioned for the wound.

  “I think we’re going to need two beds,” Caleb said, whistling. He felt Dave’s forehead. “There’s a fever cooking here, too. You people are not in fine fettle, are you? Not even a little bit.” Caleb got up and addressed Lucy. “I can offer beds, medical help, food, and liquor, my dear.”

  “In exchange for what?” Free asked, his voice as suspicious as it needed to be in this changed world.

  Caleb affected a wounded look, placing a hand over his heart. “Sir, you do me a disservice. All we ask for here at Caleb’s is that a contribution be made—a fair contribution made in exchange for our largesse. If you don’t have goods to trade, then we will take services, work in kind, or if you prefer, gold, diamonds, or any other precious materials. This situation will not last forever, and I’m sure you understand that fair exchange is no robbery.”

  Free looked like he’d heard it all before, but accepted that this was the way of things now.

  Across the room, Tommy had begun looking around, assaying the odd combination of clashing styles in the space—utilitarian simplicity overlaid with nightclub opulence. “So, what’s the setup here, Caleb? You want us to be honest with you, then you’re gonna have to be honest with us. I’ve seen enough horror movies that start with strangers finding their way into seriously weird places in the wilderness, just before they got turned into lunch. And, man, this place is a bunch of weird biscuits covered in mighty peculiar gravy. You’ve gotta know that the last thing we expected to encounter beneath a wind farm was the Ross Avenue Sunset Lounge transplanted all the way from Dallas. You get me?”

  Caleb nodded, but opened his arms expansively. “I assure you, sir, this room is just a glorious affectation. Something to remind us of the world that has passed. Yes, we’re profligate with our use of power, but what else can we do with it? The power lines to the cities are down or out of commission, and the cities themselves are almost empty, with everyone going south.”

  “Why haven’t you gone south?” Lucy asked, sure enough that they were not in any immediate danger to flick the safety back on her weapon and point it to the floor.

  “My good woman,” Caleb began, an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there in all the sparkling bonhomie up until now, “it’s our firm belief that some people should stay at their posts. One day, one day in the not too distant future, this facility might be a vital component in getting civilization back on firm footing. Power is power after all is said and done. We’ve decided to stay here and keep up a maintenance schedule on the turbines, and keep the generators in serviceable condition.”

  Caleb grasped his own lapels and sighed. “Not everyone has run away, madam. And we’ll be waiting for those who have when they deign to return. Waiting for them with the energy they’ll need to rebuild. We’re not going to be able to transport fossil fuels in large quantities to the power stations, and who knows what has happened to the nuclear facilities in these turbulent times? The fracking derricks are silent, and oil is a thing of the past. Places like this are the only future we have right now.”

  Caleb’s eyes sparkled with something Nathan might have recognized as the pride that comes with fulfilling a duty to one’s fellow citizens, while at the same time acknowledging some true personal sacrifice in doing so.

  “We’re a small band here,” Caleb continued. “Just eight of us, living, working, and, as you can see from my bar, having a little fun downtime when the opportunity arises. Surely, you wouldn’t begrudge us that? I assure you, if you could carry the electricity away from here in barrels, I would give you all you wanted. Suffice it to say, for as long as you stay, you’re at liberty to enjoy the fruits of our labor, and to contribute in any way we can all agree on. We’re no threat to you. You are, after all, the ones with the weapons. All I have is a bow tie and a smile.”

  Nathan had just enough breath to say, “That’s… fine… Caleb. We’ll work… and we’ll pay… what… we owe.”

  Caleb clapped his hands together and smiled brightly.

  “Then I think, Nate, we have the basis of a beautiful friendship.”

  Miriam Slone was plump and ruddy, and had quick eyes thumbed deep into a doughy face. Her hair was braided with a ton of gray through what once might have been a reddish chestnut but was now just a standard brown. She moved with a lumpy determination around the room in her nurse’s uniform, plumping pillows, checking on Dave’s temperature, and doling out painkillers and antibiotics to both Nathan and Dave.

  Nathan hadn’t been able to sleep in the twelve hours he’d been in the infirmary—the place Larry had called a storeroom—such was the cough that wracked his frame. Any moment he felt like he was getting close to sleep, his throat would rasp, his eyes bulge, and his mouth fill with a gritty sludge of phlegm that he would have to spit into a bowl by his side on the bed.

  He’d become concerned upon seeing there were tiny strings of pink blood in the foul material he was bringing up from his lungs, but Miriam assured him it was perfectly normal with the amount of coughing he was experiencing.

  She’d been a nurse before the Big Winter, she’d told him, working mainly in theaters in various Denver hospitals. She was proudly single, too, she’d told him while bustling around Nathan and Dave—her patients were her children, and she cared for each and every one without fear or favor.

  “How did you wind up… on… the… wind farm?” Nathan had asked as Miriam had given him the thumbnail sketch of her life and career.

  “How does anyone end up anywhere in these troubled times?” she asked in return, putting a fresh jug of water on the table next to the bed. “Caleb and I had a fortuitous meeting, and I decided to stay. He’s a little odd, as I’m sure you’ve realized, but his heart is in exactly the right place. He was the lead managing engineer of Dillinger Power, the company who owns the facility. Everyone else lit out south, except Larry and a few others who share Caleb’s sense of duty. I think he’s a rather fine man. Don’t you?”

  Nathan had tried to answer in the affirmative, but suddenly his throat had felt like he was trying to cough up a dog as bear-clawed and razor-toothed as Rapier. He’d just wanted the pain and the cough to leave him alone. Miriam had smiled compassionately, made him comfortable, placed a clean bowl next to him,
and then left him to try to get some sleep.

  That had been twelve long, painful hours ago.

  A huddled conversation was beginning in the corner of the storeroom/infirmary, held between Caleb, Miriam, and Larry over the best thing to do about Dave’s shattered ulna. Nathan hadn’t been asleep but lay as still as he could to get the gist of what was being said. Dave stirred gently in his bed, but seemed asleep, or at least zonked out on pain medication.

  Miriam said she’d seen the operation to pin broken forearms many times in her operating theater but didn’t know if she had the skills to carry out the procedure herself. Caleb was flicking through a book of surgical operations and pointing at the glossy pictures which Nathan could only see as a blur of green scrubs and red blood. Caleb didn’t seem to be sure if he could do it, either. It had been Larry, with his walnut fingers, who’d scratched at his head, sucked in his cheeks, and said, “Pinning those bones back together ain’t gonna be much different from playing with my Erector set as a kid. Few screws and bolts, a couple of steel struts, and I reckon we can stabilize the break enough to have it knit.”

  Nathan had had to stifle both a gasp of shock and almost a laugh of amusement at the way both Caleb and Miriam had turned their heads toward Larry, there in his overalls with engine grease on his cheeks—where it seemed to be a permanent fixture—and looked at him as if they’d just gotten a visit from a Martian.

  “You think you can do it? Truly?” Caleb asked, and Nathan tried to keep as still as he could, suppressing a savage cough that was growing in his chest.

  “If Miriam can help me get the things we’ll need clean and sterile enough, I don’t see why not. It’s gonna be a lash-up, whatever we do, but really, what’s the alternative?”

  “There isn’t one,” Miriam agreed. “If we don’t go in and clean it up, see what’s happening infection-wise, and at least try to isolate the fracture, there’s a good chance that boy might lose the arm altogether.”

  Caleb nodded gravely. “And we all know what that might mean in the long run.”

  The three nodded, and that’s when Nathan was no longer able to keep inside the cough that had been mountaineering up his throat using crampons and an icepick.

  Miriam bustled over to Nathan’s side and moved him gently to a more comfortable position, then took his temperature and tutted at the thermometer as it came out of his mouth. She showed the glass tube to Caleb, whose face wore a veil of concern.

  “How are you feeling, Nate?”

  “Terrified… A nurse, an engineer, and a mechanic”—Nathan had to stop to catch his breath and wipe at his eyes—“are planning surgery on that boy’s arm. The very notion of that is… killing me.”

  Caleb nodded. “I can assure you, Nate, we’re not enjoying the idea ourselves.”

  Caleb bent in closer, so that Nathan could see the pores in his skin and the individual hairs in his pencil mustache. “But the alternative is that we leave him to die of infection or saw the whole arm off altogether. You tell me, Nate… what would you do?”

  7

  Preparations were being made for the operation.

  In a room across the hall from the infirmary, Nathan could hear the low voices of Miriam and Larry as they cleaned, scrubbed, lay down plastic sheeting, and moved furniture. Occasionally, Caleb or Miriam would look into the infirmary with serious faces, check out the forms of Nathan and Dave in their respective beds, and then go back to whatever it was they were doing.

  Nathan hadn’t seen his sons, Free, Lucy, or Donie since last night. Free had brought Tony and Brandon to the door to wave, but Caleb had suggested they keep the kids outside while there was so much infection in the room.

  Tony had called from the door that he loved Nathan and couldn’t wait for him to be better. He’d even picked up Brandon’s little hand and waved it toward Nathan. It had been all Nathan could do to lift his arm to wave back. If he tried to talk, his ribcage would explode in a barrage of sickening coughs, spraying the air with spittle and God knew what bacteria. Miriam was still feeding him regular amounts of antibiotics, but as of yet, they weren’t touching the infection.

  Dave had been asleep most of the time. Although Miriam had stayed in the room in case she was needed, stretched out on a poolside lounge chair during the night before going to assist Larry in setting up the makeshift operating theater—or, well, she was more of a director than an assistant if Nathan read the intonation of her voice correctly.

  Although there were no windows in the room to look out over the landscape, there was a dirty, plastic skylight that rattled in the wind, which had a fuzzy layer of ice across it. Through the opaque frozen water, Nathan could see a huge turbine thrumming and revolving in what seemed to be a pretty constant level of breeze. The power company had chosen well to place it here in this part of eastern Colorado. The ridge was wide open to the elements, and now that what had passed for a tiny break in the Big Winter this far west was over, the turbines would have to be kept moving lest they freeze up completely.

  As Nathan listened to Miriam and Larry across the hall, he could see through the skylight—there were small, black, silhouetted figures up on the maintenance deck behind the turbine. They were dwarfed by the size of the machine. The turbine came slowly to a halt, and presently, eye-hurting white blasts of welding light threw crazy shadows against the superstructure. Keeping the windmills in working condition must be a full-time job.

  It was as an arc of light sparked and splashed against the fast-moving sky that the idea hit Nathan. He blinked, tried to catch his breath, and then crashed into another fit of savage coughing. A sick feeling in Nathan’s gut complicated the pain in his chest. If anything, his breathing was getting worse, and there were moments of panic, like now, which he assumed must be exactly the same sensation felt by Tony when he was in the middle of an asthma attack.

  His body felt leaden, and his head thick with fever, but he wasn’t going to lie there and not offer Dave any comfort that he could. The idea burned in his head like the white arc of light above.

  He would have to go speak to Dave and tell him his idea. Calling across the infirmary would alert the others and would probably send him into another painful episode of coughing, though. Nathan forced himself to sit up. He did it as slowly as he could, but he was still slammed by the wet, soupy cough and a roiling wave of nausea.

  Dave was awake in his bed, but he looked sick. His forehead showed a sheen of sweat and his eyes were rimmed red. His broken arm, with its now hideously swollen hand, lay on a wire frame to keep it steady. The wound, which Nathan could smell as he approached, was covered in gauze and a crust of dried blood. The smashed bone was still inside Dave’s forearm, but the awkward angle at which the limb was resting told Nathan all he needed to know about Dave’s earthquake-related injury.

  Nathan just made it to the chair next to Dave’s bed before his knees gave way. He thumped down onto the faux leather seat and had a thirty-second coughing fit that made speaking impossible. When it finished, Nathan was left skirting the perimeter of colossal exhaustion.

  Dave used his good arm to squeeze Nathan’s wrist as the coughing reached its crescendo and then retreated.

  “It’s okay, Nate, take your time… I ain’t going nowhere.”

  Nathan grinned. “I… came all the way… over here… to see if I could… help you… not have you comfort me.”

  Dave smiled back, but the expression was soon lost in a wince of pain. When the wave of agony receded, Dave flicked his eyes at his gauze-covered forearm. “Man, it hurts. I’ve never felt anything like it in my life. It’s worse… than… you know. What happened in Detroit.”

  Nathan remembered that all too well—coming into the freezing tenement room and finding Dave crucified to the floorboards with six-inch nails through the centers of both his palms. The victim of a vicious gang leader, Dave had been left to die in the cold, unable to free himself.

  He’d recovered well from the trauma of that experience, and for him to now be on
the verge of allowing amateur surgery or losing his arm completely seemed to be the most unfair turn of events.

  “You sure… you want… to go through… with this?” Nathan’s ragged breathing punctuated his words like an angry rattlesnake hissing from his lungs.

  Dave nodded. “I don’t see how I have any choice.”

  “I’m no surgeon… and I don’t have the experience to argue… with someone like Miriam… but there might be a better way than a mechanic going in, and bolting pieces of… Erector to your bones.”

  Dave’s face lit up. “You think?”

  “I… do… but…”

  Nathan’s head began to swim, deeper and harder than it had before. The pressure was building up. It felt like rubber stoppers had been forced into his ears, and the room lurched like it had been hit by a vicious undersea current. Nathan leaned forward, putting his head on the bed to steady himself.

  He shouldn’t have gotten out of bed; he shouldn’t have been trying to get involved with Dave’s treatment. His own health was shot to pieces, and he was putting himself through the wringer. Why did he have to get involved—why didn’t he think of himself instead of everyone else?

  It took a second for Nathan to realize that those words, words that he wouldn’t ever have normally thought, weren’t his thoughts at all. They were the product of someone else’s voice.

  “God, Nathan! Why can’t you just rest and let us help you both? You don’t have to keep playing the damn hero all the time!”

  Lucy.

  She’d come into the infirmary behind them and had overheard what Nathan had been saying to Dave. Now she was putting her hands under Nathan’s arms and trying to get him to stand.

  “Come on, you big stupid lunk! Get back to bed before I throw you on it!”

  Nathan rose on pipe-cleaner legs with the gyros out in both his hips. He staggered forward, and Lucy arrested a potential fall by putting a hand on his chest and putting her other hand in the collar of his shirt, pulling him upright. It would do no good to argue now; she was determined to move him back across the room. Nathan tried to conserve what breath he had so he could at least explain his idea to Lucy. But as they shuffled slowly back to Nathan’s bed, she read him the riot act and threw the book at him at the same time.