Lou rose from his desk, stretched, and headed to the back to give Gabe such assistance as his aging bones allowed. He entered the press room and admired the cogs and rollers of this beautifully restored machine. He began tying twine around the bundles as Gabe plunked them down.
Esther Barrington had just left with her bundle, headed for her handcart, but now she rushed back in the door. She’d dropped the bundle in her hurry, and she was wild-eyed. “There are six cars headed up the road towards us now. They have guns. It looks bad.” She brushed by them and pushed open the back door to the building, letting it fall shut behind her as she took off in a sprint.
Gabe and Lou exchanged a meaningful look.
“Guess you’re gonna do what you’re gonna do,” Gabe said. “Can’t change your mind? Didn’t think so. I’m outta here.” Gabe stripped off his grimy coverall and shrugged into his jacket. Grabbing his hat, he also made an exit via the back door.
Lou stood up and calmly walked over to the gallons of ethanol stored neatly against one wall. Ruefully but methodically, he began to pour the contents onto his beloved press, pausing to stuff balled up copies of today’s paper into the crevices of the device, then saturating it with the flammable accelerant.
Car engines pulled out up front and died; car doors slammed. A three-second burst of automatic weapons fire rang out. Lou strained his ears for a cry or thrashing that might mean Gabe was hit, but it didn’t come.
The six cars—revived from their sterile storage in the fenced compound’s bunker for just this occasion, fueled and lubricated with precious fuel and oil preserved in sealed containers—had pulled up in a defensive formation. The men within grinned thinly, betraying their joy at having a purpose again. The tightness in their shoulders and the snugness of their shirts across their paunchy bellies attested to many months of forced inactivity and ennui.
They had no radios; the devastation wrought on the plastics and wires of small electronics that were frequently handled had been near-complete. They communicated using hand signals and the occasional verbal command. They surrounded the Register building, covering all exits and all windows with their weapons. Once all were in place, four men slipped sideways through the front doors, alert for traps or ambushes that never came.
Tyler was in the leading group, and after the initial rush of entry, he sniffed. “Shit! I smell burning!” he cried. The four men dashed willy-nilly into the press room and saw flames beginning to lick one side of the metal behemoth. They rushed to whip off their jackets, smothering the flames where they could.
“Looks like a lot of the fire went out on its own,” Brent observed.
Tyler spotted a water bucket under a pump and quickly filled it. A few trips back and forth extinguished the remaining flames. “Clear the building!” the men moved quickly and established that the structure was empty. Lou had made good his escape. “Steve won’t be happy about that. He wanted him arrested. I have the warrant here.”
Brent smirked at Tyler’s earnestness. Warrant indeed. “At least we’ve got the press and the newspaper building secured,” Brent said.
At that moment, one of the outside men shouldered through the door and dumped an indignant Gabe to the floor. The man had a huge lump on his forehead that swelled his eye shut, and his torn clothing and huddled posture suggested he’d taken more.
“What have we here?” laughed Tyler. “Even better. The press and the pressman. Not bad for an afternoon’s work. The president will be pleased.”
A Modest Proposal
Over that season, Jeremy made at least one of the weekly Ozark runs for the Bolivar company. Each time, he sold all the seabutter he could bring. More interestingly, he observed that his return trips started to involve more company. The first few trips, he would come with Jed or someone else from Bolivar, and they’d ride home with a load of trade goods.
Then, one morning, he walked out the door of Gaby’s house to rinse off and brush his teeth at the pump.
There was a woman waiting for him. She was scrawny and her hair and eyes were dull. “Excuse me?” she said. “Are you Jeremy Robinson?”
“Last time I checked.”
“Jed said I’d find you here. My name’s Sarah Cooper. Can you take passengers to the Gulf?”
“Depends. How many passengers?”
“Me, and three little ones. We don’t weigh much, and we won’t take up much room. The youngest is just a baby. We won’t eat much.” She gave a little nod as though setting her resolve, and then sidled up to Jeremy inexpertly. “I could make it worth your while.”
Jeremy looked at her, mentally compared her emaciated pallor to his lovely Gaby’s fullness and grace, and sidled back himself. “That won’t be necessary,” he said laconically. “Y’all can ride with us. Pay it forward to someone else. What goes around, comes around.”
She smiled, showing a missing bicuspid, and thanked him profusely.
She and the children arrived at the appointed time. They had little baggage, basically just what they’d need for the trip. The children were skinny but neatly dressed, and better-fed than their mom, he noted with some approval. True to her word, Sarah kept the children calm and quiet most of the time ,and had to be pressed to take some of their food.
“It’s the seeds,” she explained. “It just got too easy for the farmers to buy their seed from the big agricultural suppliers every year. They put seed by at the end of this year’s harvest, but that won’t feed us for another year. It’ll be fine after that, but these young ones can’t wait another year. They’re growing now.”
Jeremy privately doubted that food would be as plentiful as before, even after the reserved seed was put in. He knew from his dad’s lectures that yields had doubled in the past century because of cheap, plentiful chemical fertilizers and mechanical cultivation. Neither of those simple technologies were attainable now. The effect of the machine sickness had been fatal for manufacturing and transporting fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides, and the limitations of ethanol engines lubricated with natural substances.
On the other hand, a lot of people had died in the upheavals, After. Most of the dead were in the cities, and the people who’d survived were the ones who’d gotten out. They were spread across the countryside and small and midsize towns. Abandoned homes were being reclaimed by squatters. But if the populace was reduced by a third, and food production was half of what it had been, seabutter could make up the deficit.
Jeremy and the Bolivar Partnership were bringing the seabutter to the people. But what if the people came to the seabutter? That’s what Sarah was doing. Despite Jed and Jeremy’s urgings to continue with them, she elected to hop off the wagon as soon as the sea came into view beneath its cowl of roiling clouds. She stood holding a child’s hand on each side, the baby slung at her hip and a rifle across her back. The kids waved goodbye.
“I feel bad about leaving them alone.” Jed shook his head and turned to look back at them, but they’d disappeared into the palmetto scrub.
“She made her choice. You can’t protect someone who doesn’t want protecting. That’s how a man winds up dying for nothing.”
“What would you die for, Jeremy?”
“That’s a young man’s question. My uncle died in Viet Nam when I was five. My aunt kept a framed poem by AE Housman on the wall in her kitchen, with his picture tucked into the corner of it:
Here dead lie we because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.
“The question is, what would you live for?”
Jed wrinkled his forehead at that, but let the conversation drop.
But the questions reverberated in Jeremy’s head for quite some time after. They haunted him every time he drove a wagon carrying load after load of passengers to the coast. They passed more on foot or riding donkeys, leading cattle or herds of sheep, toting barrows and travoi
ses of things and food and people and livestock with them.
The co-operative had agreed on how to set a fair price for transport, which varied with demand, but Jeremy—who was accumulating quite a store of Pelicans by this point—himself paid a good number of fares on behalf of the destitute. What goes around, comes around. The wheels went around, and the horses’ hoofs beat out a rhythmic question: What would you live for? What would you die for?
#
One fine October day, Jeremy was late arriving in Pine Bluff. A wheel had broken on the wagon, and the spare was lying flat on the wagon floor under the full load of seabutter, which had to be unloaded so the wheel could be replaced and then reloaded again.
He and Jed were both whipped when the wagon stopped at Gaby’s. The sunset was subtle streaks of peach and lemon on the horizon. Jeremy handed off the reins to Jed and grabbed his duffel. Jed waved and rode off. Jeremy patted his pocket as he walked inside.
“There’s my cowboy,” grinned Gaby. Her flashing smile still took his breath away. She wrapped her arms around his neck for a hot kiss.
He took her shoulders and pushed her back, looking her in the eyes. “It’s been twenty years since I did this, and I told myself I’d never do it again, but…” He dropped to one knee, producing a ring. “Will you marry me?”
She put her hands over her mouth, nodding. “Yes!” she managed to squeak out.
Martha, Cristina, and Ricardo had been eavesdropping, and they burst out of the bedroom in excitement. Jeremy and Gaby were enfolded by a bounding, squealing scrum of a group hug.
Nun of That, Now
After the meal, the women sorted themselves into two groups, the bigger group of Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict heading out one door to their evening devotions—or whatever nuns did with their evenings—and the others heading out the exterior door. D.D. followed the nuns and headed to the hospital dorm.
It annoyed but didn’t surprise her to find Cindy walking behind her. When D.D. made the turn into the dorm, Cindy called out, “Going to the guest quarters?”
“Yeah, I guess so. What do they wear for bathing suits?” No nylon or spandex any more.
“Just throw on some shorts if you have some, and a tank top. Maybe you can get Lacey to make you an actual suit while you’re here. She sews.”
D.D. quickly changed into cutoffs and a cotton tank from her pack. She popped out into the hall and started back the way she came. She was just stepping out the door into the moonlight when Cindy came in the the other dining hall door.
“You’ll want this,” Cindy said, holding out a towel. D.D. noticed she had one for herself too, and was wearing the same kind of shift they’d dressed D.D. in when she first got out of bed. On the large woman, it looked like a circus tent.
“Thanks,” D.D. said.
Cindy followed her out the door. To D.D.’s questioning glance, she shrugged, “What Mother Laura doesn’t know, won’t hurt her.”
Great, D.D. thought. She doesn’t seem like the type who discourages easily. But Cindy was perfectly cool all the way down the moonlit path.
Something cold and slimy touched her hand, and she jerked away. It was the dog, tail wagging, asking for her attention. She scratched his ears.
“That’s the guest quarters,” Cindy pointed out the building with candlelit windows ahead. “And if you can see it in the dark, the stable is right over there.” D.D. could just make out the flat-topped barn to the right. The two women walked around the building. “And here…” She paused for dramatic effect, “is the hot tub!” She touched D.D.’s back and D.D. stepped forward.
D.D. drew closer to the tableau: what looked like a huge kiddie pool, surrounded by bushy plants, with oil-lamp torches burning around it (the seabutter burned with a charring-barbecue kind of smell, she noted, meaning there must be a good bit of protein in it). Ten women sat in the pool. As she got closer, she saw that it was a huge, circular stock-watering trough, the kind you saw on big cattle operations, holding thousands of gallons of water. She shrugged, looked around, and tossed her towel on top of the pile of towels to one side, then walked up to the edge of the tub. The dog cringed, wagging his tail nervously. Must be afraid of water. There was a little wooden stair there, so she stepped up onto it.
“Careful!” called Selene. “It can be a little slippery climbing in.” Someone held out a hand, and D.D. took it as she lowered herself into the tub.
“This is D.D., everybody. Everybody, D.D.!” She was introduced to Amelia, Carolyn, Deanna, Jada, Karen, Lacey, Prianca, and Tonya.
“Sorry, I know I won’t remember all your names.” Lacey, she’s the one who sews. Prianca looks Indian and has an Indian name. The rest? Amelia, umm, Carolyn…
The water was quite warm—almost too warm at first. “Ahhhh… That feels so good!” D.D. let herself sink into the tub up to her chin. The heat began to make her skin flush and her muscles unlimber.
“Move, girl!” commanded Cindy.
D.D. slithered across the bottom of the tank to an open space on the other side and hooked her hands over the rolled rim. Cindy unceremoniously plopped into the water, creating great waves that slopped over the edges, prompting objections from the others in the water.
“Hey, you’re spilling the hot water! Fuckin’ firewood doesn’t grow on trees!” Maddy said.
“Actually, it does.” said Cindy. “Whooo-hooo! That is some hot water. Man, that feels great!” She paddled around and wedged her bulk in not far from D.D.
“So, you’re the gal that killed that filthy pack of redneck assholes?” Carolyn…or was it Deanna?
“Hey, watch it! I’m a proud redneck, dammit!” one of the others said.
“Hell, yeah!” someone seconded.
“Whatever. So, how’d you do it? Those killers have been picking off solo travelers on that stretch of road out of Hattiesburg for quite some time now.”
D.D. had thought a lot about that during her convalescence. “Well, they were split up at first, so I didn’t have to deal with them all at the same time…”
“How many were there?” someone said.
“I counted seven, including the one who was down, the one Selene shot,” said Maddy.
“I was sure glad to see you three ride up!” DD said.
“You made quite a sight, riding into the monastery,” said Lacey. “The four horsewomen of the Apocalypse.”
“Shit!” said Maddy. “Fuckin’ Pestilence, Famine, War, and Death. That’s us.”
“Yeah, except I wasn’t on a horse,” objected Cindy. “Which of the four horsemen rode a four-wheeler?”
“Machine sickness.” said someone. “Was that one of the Horsemen?”
“Yeah,” said D.D. thoughtfully. “Who’d have thought the plague that wiped out civilization would be a plague that made things sick instead of people?”
“I don’t know about civilization being wiped out.” The woman speaking was reserved and composed. Jada? “I think this big change just made civilization stop and pivot.”
“What the motherfucking Hell are you talking about? Didn’t you hear about those cunts who D.D. killed? Were they civilized?”
“Well, there were plenty of criminals and fighting and shooting in the neighborhood where I lived in Baltimore,” Jada said. “And I can tell you, most of them died in the few weeks after the machine sickness kicked in. It was full-on war for what little was left.”
“Good Lord, child! How’d you survive? How’d you get out?”
“I hid in the basement until spring. By that time, all the little guys had deserted, until the big players were fighting each other in the streets themselves.”
“The basement?”
“The basement where?”
“How did you eat?”
She was peppered with several questions at once.
“Where did you shit?” Maddy. Of course.
“I’d really rather not talk about it.” The pain in her voice yanked their curiosity up short. Quiet ruled for a few minutes, pun
ctuated by a sigh now and then as someone shifted her muscles in the warm water.
“So, did you pick out a name for the dog?” asked Maddy.
“How about Kittykitty?” said D.D. thoughtfully.
“What kind of name is that for a dog?” said Cindy.
“—That’s great!” said Selene at the same time.
“I always wanted to have a dog named that. Imagine calling out ‘Here, kitty, kitty,’ and this yaller dog comes running up.”
Hearing the high-pitched call, the dog actually did come running up into the edge of the torchlight, wagging its tail, head to one side.
“Well, that settles it. The dog’s name is Kittykitty. Here, Kittykitty!” D.D. stuck her hand out and Kittykitty licked the water off it, then lay down.
“My brother had a yaller dog with a black face like that. Did you know they’re actually a separate breed, descended from Indian dogs?” Lacey said.
“That’s what folks called them in South Carolina where I grew up. Indian dogs…or Carolina curs.”
Selene reached out into the darkness and grabbed a bottle, handed it to D.D. “Try our homemade honey hooch. I guess you could call it distilled mead. We call it bees’ knees.”
“Bees’ knees? Cute!” D.D. twisted the metal lid off the old whiskey bottle, sniffed, and swigged. It burned going down, but the aroma and aftertaste were actually pleasantly sweet and flowery. She huffed a little, but took another hit.
Cindy held out her hand, and D.D. handed the bottle to Selene between them. Selene took a bracing glug-glug-glug draught and handed the bottle along to Cindy, who surprised D.D. by taking only a moderate swallow before handing the bottle along. Would have figured her for a lush.
“Now I’m warm inside and out.” D.D. sighed contentedly.
“How’s that collarbone?” asked Cindy.
“It’s still kind of sore and achey,” D.D. said. “I never had a broken bone before. I guess I’ll always have this bump.” She looked down at her collarbones. The one that had broken had a definite lump—the size, maybe, of a small lime.
Eupocalypse Box Set Page 42