“Josh, I got it! I got the shewanella strains to culture!”
Josh stood up, mirroring Amit’s delight. “The electrically conductive bacterium? The one they use in biological fuel cells?”
Amit was bouncing on his toes, he was so excited, and Josh nodded with him. Giddy as children, the firewood forgotten, the two men walked off to the laboratory shed together, gabbing a mile a minute and waving their arms.
The long winter gave them time to work on the building’s wiring, wrapping the wires with home-made cotton braid to prevent short-circuits once the p davisii infection spread. For, Amit told them, it was an issue of when, not if. “There is no way to sterilize a space this big and varied. Every surface you touch every day is populated with bacteria. Making and maintaining a small, sterile area to work in comprises most of the daily routine of a micro lab. The world around you is, literally, an invisible ecology of microbes incessantly competing with one another.”
One day, the radio sputtered and voices were heard. Everyone inside dropped what they were doing and looked at one another for a few ticks, stunned, unsure if they’d imagined it. Then the voices returned, clearer, and Snowbear lunged for the dial and turned the volume up.
“Passing the windbreak now.” A man’s voice came on the frequency, tinny and distorted.
Another voice responded, “Any sign of activity?”
“Negative.”
“Oh, shit!” Snowbear exclaimed. “They’re coming here! Now! This isn’t good.”
“Who’s on patrol?”
“I was,” said LaDwon, a handsome young black man, coming in and stomping the snow off his boots. “Murphy was supposed to relieve me.” Murphy’s dreadlocked dirty-blond hair and pierced eyebrows popped around the corner of the doorway to the kitchen. He finished chewing and hastily swallowed what he’d been eating.
“Don’t go out, Murphy,” said Snowbear. “The two of you, go up to the gun safe. Take half the rifles and all the handguns and put them in the crawlspace in the root cellar. Hide most of the ammo too but leave a few rounds so they won’t get suspicious. Leave the shotguns, they’re useless now.”
The two younger men stood, confused, not comprehending, shocked at the change in their normally mild-mannered elder’s demeanor. “Come on!” snapped Snowbear. “They’re coming for us. NOW! MOVE!” To punctuate his order, the radio began to spout communications again. The younger men vanished to do as instructed. The invaders, clearly more organized than the random bands they’d seen so far, had found the stack of dead bodies in the snow, meaning they surrounded Sutokata on at least two sides. Meaning also, that they knew the collective was armed and unafraid to shoot; no taking them by surprise! Snowbear spotted a man’s form running by the window, silhouetted against the winter whiteness. He turned off the radio and covered it with a pile of papers, trying his best to make it look like a random mess, instead of like he was trying to hide something. He was halfway to the front door when it splintered, as a raider kicked it in.
“Aw, man!” He said the first thing that came to his head, “That door wasn’t even locked! Now I’m gonna need to fix the hasp!” Five militaristic men, in puffy black winter jumpsuits and black balaclavas, leveled weapons at him and then swung them around the room, pinning him, Amit, and Akisni in place with their hands up.
“How many of you are there?” The closest aggressor demanded.
“Seventeen.” Snowbear answered.
“Where are they at?” Snowbear hesitated, unsure how to answer, “I said, WHERE ARE THEY AT, FREAK!?” The thuggish cop… guardsman…whatever they were (they wore no insignia and didn’t bother to identify themselves), gestured threateningly with his weapon, though his finger was, at least, still off the trigger.
“Calm down. I am cooperating.” He could hear Akisni’s ragged breath, fought back the atavistic masculine urge to protect his mate aggressively at all costs. He spoke calmly. “I don’t know where they all are. Some are outside…”
At that moment, LaDwon and Murphy entered the room. They paused to take in the tableau, then immediately put their hands up high.
A big four-wheel-drive SUV pulled up in front of the door and seven more armed men piled out. They came in through the broken front door and wordlessly began searching the house. They opened the kitchen cabinets and stuffed a few items in their pockets, mostly commercial sweets Akisni’d been saving for special occasions. Then they trooped up the stairs. “Gun safe!” came a shout from upstairs. Their captor turned to face Snowbear, brandishing his weapon demandingly.
“Here’s the key, in my pocket,” volunteered Snowbear, slowly and deliberately extracting it and handing it to the thug nearest the stairs. The attacker took the key and headed up, and moments later, came down cradling four shotguns and two hunting rifles in his arms with a few boxes of rifle ammo in his hands; he carried them out to the SUV and put them in the back.
The searchers finished searching the bedrooms upstairs—it sounded like the whole floor was getting a good tossing, and Akisni’s terror was turning into anger with every crockery-breaking and fabric-ripping sound. They came down to the main level, and then five of them trooped into the root cellar. All the residents tried not to show any increased concern.
“Jackpot!” One of the raiders called from downstairs. The Sutokatans assumed their gun cache was discovered, and they were silently dismayed (except for Akisni) at the thought of being both defenseless and unable to hunt. But then a trooper came out of the basement door, weapon slung behind him, holding up a long, coiled length of hemp rope in one hand and a bundle of the reeds they used to weave baskets in the other. Two men came up behind him, carrying Akisni’s huge canvas bags of raw wool and cotton. The last two came out, one carrying two large glass jars of precious fat which they used to make candles, which they needed more and more for light over the winter, as the sun went down early and the deteriorating batteries’ charges ran out before bedtime. The last of the thugs came out, holding nothing but his own rifle.
The one still holding Snowbear at gunpoint told the other two who'd been with him, “Search this room.” To Snowbear’s relief, they didn't make a thorough job of it and didn't toss it as they had the upstairs. They pulled a few shelves of books onto the floor, but he could see them decide that the chore of unshelving the whole library would have been tedious and unproductive. They barely shuffled the top layer of papers covering the inset cubby which held the radio.
“Hah!” exclaimed one of the intruders happily. He held aloft a big basket full of tubular braid which Akisni and Sheila, the ten-year-old, had been weaving to insulate the wiring. The leader smiled and nodded, and when all his men had exited, he grabbed the kerosene lantern, full of untainted fuel, that hung on its hook by the front door and carried it with him to the car.
The five Sutokatans walked to the door and watched them drive off. There were four more vehicles, five total. One was marked as County Sheriff and one marked Fish and Wildlife, while the remaining three were unmarked. One of the cars knocked over the low fence around the kitchen herb garden, half buried in snow. The rest of the community came downstairs or gravitated towards the main building from the barns and sheds, and soon all seventeen of them were in the main common room. Akisni was quietly sobbing; Amit held her hand.
Snowbear quickly directed Murphy to complete his planned patrol, and Murphy clattered down to the cellar. The young man, frustrated that he’d not had an opportunity to heroically bash the marauders, was plainly glad to have some type of real action to take, and fairly strutted out the door loading a 30.06. The rest of the diverse group sank down into chairs or sat on the floor. They tried to assess the damage calmly.
“We lost half our guns, but we still have five rifles and a good supply of matching ammo. We are short on handgun ammo, but the guys,” he nodded at LaDwon, who nodded back, “saved all our sidearms.”
“They also didn’t find the radio. I’m surprised by what they did take, though...”
“...Natural
materials.” Observed Akisni in a tear-choked voice. “All our hard work.”
“She’s right!” exclaimed Amit. “It makes sense. Plastic has got to be becoming increasingly useless. They may have sterile fuel depots (for now) at military bases, but one thing they don’t have is a supply line for p. davisii-resistant materials. They have to take it where they can get it locally.”
“They took the cowhide,” volunteered Brittani, a young woman all dimples and lips, café-au-lait skin and sparkling eyes. “I was out in the barn when they came, and the hide that was hanging on the siding, they just yanked it down and rolled it up.”
“My cotton.” Akisni shook her head. “In a couple of months, we’ll shear the sheep and have more wool, but cotton country starts at least a hundred miles south of here. Might as well be in Timbuktu.” Sheila gravely processed this information, still crestfallen that all her handiwork had been stolen.
“I’m guessing cotton is going to be hard to come by anywhere. Cotton is a thirsty crop and they’re going to have to figure out new ways to grow it, with all the PVC piping to the irrigation rigs falling down,” observed Jesse, drawing on experiences of his youth in central Georgia. “I imagine they've figured that out too. That’s probably why they were so excited to get yours.”
The group sat up, planning ways to hide their natural materials against future confiscations, and speculating about ways to produce more. In truth, they went on talking even when there wasn’t much more to say, stunned by the violation of their private retreat, reluctant to abandon the sound of each other’s voices to sleep. When the battery power running the lights ultimately ran out for the night, they stumbled to bed in the dark.
LI.
Road Trip!
Even after the ethanol yield was divided among Ed, the farmers, and the distillers, they had more pure, blue-burning grain alcohol than two small vehicles could carry.
“This should be plenty to get us to Sutokata,” DD said to Jeremy. The achievement would have been more satisfying if only Jessica’d been there to savor it with them. DD often caught herself staring at Jessica’s scooter where it sat in its spot by the barn door. It’d been six weeks and DD’d expected her to come back to get the bike, even if she wouldn’t come with them to Sutokata after all. DD deluded herself (ineffectively) that she just wanted some sort of closure. She tried to pump Ed and Gabriela for information about Jessica’s whereabouts.
Ed said, “I don’t know where she is, but that reminds me of a riddle: What's the difference between a piano, a tuna, and a pot of glue?”
“Ummm … I give up.”
“You can tune a piano but you can't piano tuna.”
“Wait…but what about the pot of glue?”
“I knew you'd get stuck there”
#
DD tried to keep her ears open and her mouth shut, and she noticed a couple of times when conversations stopped dead when she entered the trading post, but again, it seemed that no one wanted to get involved. DD was exasperated. This wasn't like the first time around, where it was a matter of a girl sneaking off for fun and romance away from her mother's prying eyes. It was more like the end game, before she’d disappeared for good. This was a serious matter, tainted by addiction and violence. People avoided her. She felt unclean.
The days were starting to get longer; soon it would be spring, time for them to leave Arkansas and head for Sutokata. Half-heartedly, Jeremy and DD began to load two of the ATVs Jessica’d converted to ethanol.
They scanned the skies thoughtfully. Their neighbors still farmed the hills, some of them following in the footsteps of ancestors who’d farmed here for centuries, some even before the French and Spanish came. They contributed reflections about the weather conditions and how they usually changed hereabouts as the seasons changed. They hazarded guesses as to what this waning winter’s weather portended for Spring. They began to concur, in their indirect ways, pinching a bud on a tree, gouging the leaf litter with a cane, rubbing fallen tree bark between shrunken fingers, that a drying and warming trend would probably settle over the region in about two or three weeks.
The scooter in the corner of the barn seemed to DD to grow. It appeared to be covered in flashing neon lights which only she could see. DD couldn’t keep her eyes off it as the time to leave grew near. One night she sat up out of a sound sleep and looked at the scooter. It had called her, out loud, she’d swear it! She got up and walked to the scooter, then realized she actually had heard something that awakened her. The noise she was hearing was a whimper, coming from just outside the barn door. Perhaps a puppy someone’d abandoned, an infant beast orphaned when its feral mother was shot.
DD strained to lift the bar on the barn door, level with the top of her head. She pulled the door open a few feet. There was no snow on the ground, but the wind was bitterly cold in this post-midnight, moonless period.
Lying on the ground by the door, wedged against the barn's foundation, was Jessica. The whining sound was coming from her. She was curled up around her hands, which were pressed into her stomach. Her hair was filthy, matted, and sodden with blood from a cut near her temple. She smelled like a locker room, a brewery, and a strong red tide in the Gulf all mixed up together. DD helped her to her feet and into the barn. She turned and slid the door shut. Jessica immediately collapsed on a bale and curled up again.
“Stay right here. I’m going to wake Jeremy to bar the door again, okay?” DD could just barely bar the door in an emergency, straining precariously on tiptoe and grunting with the effort, but Jeremy with his greater height and strength could do it in an instant without even waking up all the way. DD slipped to his pallet on the other end of the living space and shook him awake.
After Jeremy barred the door, he came and looked down at Jessica, still twisted around her pain and unable to articulate a coherent word through her quivering throat and jaw.
He shook his head. “Damn!” was all he said. He walked back over to his pallet and lay down.
DD nursed Jessica through her DTs. She caught her puke and cleaned her head wound. She stripped her pants, drenched with blood-crimsoned urine, off her body and took the earliest opportunity to soak them in ethanol and burn them. It took two full days before Jessica could speak more than a few simple words: yes and no, and hungry and thirsty, and it hurts. She said that last phrase a lot. The shakes began to fade on the third day.
Gaby and her mom came by a few times to check on her, bringing herbal teas and soups. On the fourth day, when it was plain that Jessica was getting better, they spelled DD while she took a walk to clear her head, get her blood flowing, try to walk off the fury she felt towards Juan for what he’d done, towards Jessica for choosing to go back to him. There is no excuse for what he’s done, none! She remembered pulling the hammer back while pointing the gun at Juan’s craven face; although her other kills had been self-defense, she’d no doubt she could murder this man in cold blood.
Yet, this was Jessica’s choosing, the path she’d elected for herself. In a way, Juan wasn’t even human to her; he was just an object, like a razor blade, which Jessica used to harm herself. DD resolved to toss him out mentally like the garbage he was, rather than embroil herself in a campaign of revenge, which could only escalate fruitlessly.
She came back from her walk, calmer than she’d been since finding her girl in the frigid mud. Jessica was sitting up, draped in a tarp, propped against a bale. Gaby was sitting at her side with a bowl of water and a comb, patiently working the mats out of Jessica’s head while trying not to pull apart the freshly-stitched head wound.
“I wound up stitching up a human head after all,” Gaby smiled at DD. “Remember how she stitched up Marthita’s head when she found out I’d only done it on dogs and sheep? I got to return the favor.”
Jessica smiled wanly. “Mom, you were right. I should have known better. I’m a drunk and an addict. Will you take me back if I promise to stay clean and sober?” She knows she doesn't have to ask. But it's respectful that she did.
/>
“And Juan?” DD asked sternly.
“He can rot in Hell forever for all I care!” Her eyes filled with tears. “If you knew what he did to me,” she faded to a squeak. I'd rather not imagine.
“I don’t understand why you chose to go back to him after the first time he beat you and raped you. I didn't teach you to put up with that. You don't deserve that!”
“Because I loved him! He gets me. We are both damaged inside and he gets that about me!”
“I don't understand. How are you damaged? You had a happy, happy childhood. I gave you everything I never had and always wanted. I don't understand why you put yourself in the same category as that, that, monster.”
“I always knew I didn't belong in the world you raised me in. I always knew things would never be normal for me.”
“Jessica, what could I have done differently? How did I fail you so horribly?”
“Mom, it’s nothing you did. You couldn’t have changed it. It's not your fault.”
DD sighed, allowing that absolution to sink in. I needed to hear that.
“You know you’re my child and I love you unconditionally. But I can’t let you continue to rip my heart out this way.” DD felt inside for tears to go with this, but they were plugged up in a well deep inside her. They'd been held in place by a packer of artifice for years, as life moved over it in waves like the ocean.
Jessica was silent.
She is the thing I want most of all in the world.
“Well, we can't change the past. We can only create the future. Do you promise?” DD entreated. “No alcohol? No drugs? And no Juan?”
“I promise,” Jessica said. She was solemn and vulnerable. I know, I know. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. And this is more than twice. But I want it to be true, so badly.
“Well, good.” She said gruffly, turning away, businesslike, as though she hadn’t just exposed herself to more needless pain. “We need a mechanic for this trip to Sutokata. You’re hired.”
Eupocalypse Box Set Page 21