Convulsive Box Set

by Marcus Martin

  “Curfew in Effect. Extra Rations. Naked Flames. It’s like a music festival, featuring the worst band names ever,” muttered Lucy.

  She reread the flyer, processing the information while chewing slowly, trying to stretch out the modest meal. She glanced across the table at Dan, who was doing the same, interspersing every mouthful with a small sip of water followed by a pause.

  “I think they made a mistake with those flyers,” he offered, after another slow sip.

  “How so?” enquired Lucy, frowning as she turned the leaflet over in her hand, examining it more closely.

  “The school rations. They shouldn’t have mentioned them. Or maybe they shouldn’t have done them at all,” he continued, taking another micro-bite of tuna bread.

  Lucy gave him a baffled look.

  “There was a police car outside this school earlier,” said Dan. “Saw it on the bus home.”

  “So?”

  “I think it’s to do with the rations.”

  “That’s a bit of a leap,” countered Lucy. “It could’ve been there for loads of reasons. Hell, if it was a high school, then it was probably for one of the kids.”

  Dan shook his head as he processed another bite.

  “It was a middle school, and I think someone read that leaflet, or listened to the radio, and thought: ‘Schools are getting a bucketload of free food? Every day? I’ll have me some of that.’”

  “You’re saying someone robbed the school?” scowled Lucy.

  “Food’s the new currency, right? The government’s paying us in it, so it must be. And according to this leaflet, schools receive large, daily deposits. They’re basically unguarded banks now. This leaflet’s just told every cynical person out there exactly where to go if they want a load of free food.”

  “You think people would actually do that? Steal from children? That’s gotta be a minority of a minority, surely,” pondered Lucy, unconvinced.

  “A few hundred kid lunches are still at least one hundred adult lunches. I think from some perspectives, it’d be stupid not to do it. There’ll be a lot of people who won’t know how to make a week’s rations last properly. And when they’ve run out of food by day four, who’s gonna offer them more?”

  Lucy considered this. “Aha – but you said money’s pointless now. So even if a gang has lifted a load of kids’ lunches, how are they gonna sell them if people have nothing to pay with?”

  “I dunno. They’ll pay with stuff, I guess.”

  “And if they don’t have anything worth trading?”

  “Welcome to the world of gang debt. You can’t physically pay them, so they get you to do a favor for them instead – something pretty vanilla at first, but then say they deliberately overpay you in rations. You’re greedy or desperate, so you accept, not realizing you’re immediately in debt to them again, and the next ‘favor’ they get you to do is a little less savory. And so on, and so on, until you’re basically a hitman.”

  “Well that’s depressing.”

  “Yup,” agreed Dan, taking another sip.

  “Thanks for the cheery dinner chat, babe. I’ll think twice next time I borrow anything from you.”

  “They can fix it,” declared Dan, setting his glass down. “You just keep the soldiers there while the kids eat. It’d slow delivery down, so I guess some kids would be eating at ten and others at, like, three, but at least they wouldn’t get robbed.”

  A loud siren sounded from outside: a protracted electronic whine, lasting about four seconds. There was a pause of four more seconds then a second blast, followed by another pause, then the final siren.

  “Holy crap that was loud!” exclaimed Lucy, removing her fingers from her ears. “That’s gotta be the curfew alarm, right? Three seems excessive, surely?”

  “Loud and clear is what it was,” replied Dan. “If you’re going to use lethal force, you gotta give proper warning. And that was pretty unmistakable.” He took her empty plate and stacked it under his.

  “We should go to sleep soon,” said Lucy, watching her partner wipe the plates clean at a snail’s pace. “You’re tired, I can see it. I’m tired too. And we’re eating less. We need to compensate by sleeping more.”

  “Sounds sensible,” he sighed.

  “Besides,” added Lucy, her jaw creaking open into a yawn, “I wanna be on my peak game for the bottle factory tomorrow.”

  ***

  Lucy lumbered sleepily into the bathroom, feeling her way in the darkness, guided by the smell of bleach working hard. Once done, she made her way back towards the bedroom, only to pause mid-step, her ears pricked by the sound of an engine running outside and a car door slamming. She wandered over to the balcony and slid the door open as quietly as she could, stepping out onto the cold tiles. The moon was hidden behind cloud. Squinting at the dark streets below, she could make out a military truck at the bottom of the road. Its engine idled while the twin beams of its headlights illuminated the ground ahead.

  At the edge of the light, figures moved in the darkness, weaving between rows of parked cars, occasionally ferrying something towards the truck before scurrying back into the shadows. Lucy watched for another minute, the bright headlights hampering her ability to focus on the dark peripheral figures. The secretive work continued until the last package was loaded. The last figure climbed back into the truck and it rumbled off up the street, soon disappearing into the next block.

  Lucy slid the balcony door shut again and returned to bed, rubbing the pimples on her arms, quietly slipping into a claustrophobic dream.

  ***

  “Assholes!” exclaimed a neighbor from the street below, slamming his car door closed and kicking his vehicle in anger. “Fucking pirates, the lot of you!” the man yelled, swearing at a passing patrol car before storming back into his home.

  “Shit, so that’s what they were doing,” said Lucy, staring down at the irate man. “Are you seeing this?” She turned to look at Dan, who was engrossed in yet another ration count.

  He came over to the window and peered down. More people were appearing on the streets, checking their cars – trying the engines, examining the fuel caps, and cursing loudly.

  “None of the cars are working,” he muttered, catching up with the situation.

  “I saw it happening last night – I thought it might’ve just been a dream,” said Lucy. “There was an army truck on our street for a while, then it went round the corner. It was really dark, I couldn’t see much, but I’m guessing the next block’s fuel’s gone too.”

  She stared out at the commotion below. The people were stranded, powerless, and it made immediate sense. Cars were part of the city’s bloodstream. The circulation of people kept the city alive, but that circulation depended on fuel – a fast-dwindling resource. So to keep its patient safe, the military would have to keep its heart rate slow and regular. “Mm,” muttered Lucy, nodding to herself as she pieced it together.

  “It’s a control thing, surely,” said Dan, rudely missing her entire internal monologue. “We’re on track, by the way,” he said, tossing a notepad and pen back onto the table next to their food stock.

  “The thing I don’t get,” quizzed Lucy, “is how they knew which type of fuel they were extracting from each vehicle – because they all run off different gas, right? You think they’ve just mixed them all up? And how come our car alarm didn’t go off?”

  “The police definitely have ways to bypass car alarms, that’s easy,” reasoned Dan. “Dunno about the fuel, though. Maybe it was most efficient to collect it all then find some place to distil it apart again later?”

  He looked at Lucy properly and his expression softened to one of concern. “You look pale.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “No, I mean – here,” he passed her a vitamin bottle, “iron supplement.”

  She took it, gratefully, and necked a tablet before walking over to the calendar on the wall. Picking up a sharpie, she drew a large circle around the date.

  “Happy day two of mart
ial law, sweetie-pie,” she said, as the pen squeaked across the vertical paper. “Ready for work?”

  ***

  As they walked towards the bus stop for work, the chanting became louder.

  “That doesn’t sound too good,” cautioned Dan, as they approached the main road.

  Hundreds of people marched by, blowing whistles and chanting. A few had drums and air horns, to add to the cacophony.

  “Where’s our gas! Where’s our gas!” rang the chant, over and over, as the people walked in the direction of City Hall.

  A police patrol car slowly escorted the marchers, supported by three army jeeps at further intervals along the crowd. The soldiers eyed the protesters warily for signs that the atmosphere might turn. “Free! Movement! Is – a – right!” came a second chant, briefly overtaking the first.

  “Are they insane?” gawped Lucy, watching as people shouted and marched as if they weren’t surrounded by soldiers with machine guns.

  “I’m not sure they’ve fully grasped the implications of martial law on their ‘rights’,” replied Dan. “People don’t know what’s good for them. It’s precisely the reason they took our fuel away – these people can’t see the bigger picture.”

  Lucy examined the people walking, looking for the usual protest markers – T-shirts with the anarchy symbol on, balaclavas, caricature masks of politicians – but these people looked exceptionally ordinary.

  “I think this is about as grass roots as marches get,” she said, as they stood at the periphery. “It looks pretty safe,” she added, looking at the number of children in the crowd, following alongside their parents.

  “Yup. And it could turn on a pinhead,” said Dan, risk averse as ever. “Come on, let’s find an alternate route. I can’t see any buses coming this way soon.”

  ***

  When they met back at home that evening it was a quarter to six – nearly time for the north side of the city to receive its rations.

  Lucy and Dan took their place outside their building. The street was lined with people anxiously awaiting food. Some made small talk, presumably those fortunate enough to have had well-stocked cupboards when the satellites failed. Others just stared blankly ahead, hunger sapping the conversation from them.

  As she and Dan were new to the area they didn’t recognize many of their neighbors, but Lucy spotted Manuela standing a few yards ahead, alone. Her shoulders were slumped. Lucy felt a pang, an urge to go over to the woman, but something stopped her.

  “Everyone looks so anxious,” whispered Lucy, putting Manuela to the back of her mind and trying to discreetly study the people on the opposite sidewalk.

  “I don’t blame them. You hear the rumors?” replied Dan, leaning in.

  “I heard one at work,” said Lucy, still observing the strangers ahead. “Folk were saying Northside’s drop’s been cancelled ’cos they ran out of food doing Southside yesterday. But I figured they were just talking trash, right?”

  “I heard that too,” said Dan, also scanning the crowd. “I’m pretty sure it’s bull. But I also heard there was some commotion down at City Hall this morning.”

  “From the gas protest?”

  He nodded. “Apparently things took a turn when the protestors reached City Hall. Some of them started demanding to see the mayor, then one person pulled a gun and that was that. Police took him out. Crowd panicked. Then there are like eight different versions of what happened.”

  “Tell me the version you believe.”

  Flashing lights signaled the arrival of the ration convoy, cutting Dan off before he could reply. Leading the way was a police patrol car, followed by an armored vehicle, the supply truck, and a second armored vehicle. From the cop’s loudhailer came a somber warning: “Move from your doorstep and you will be shot. Stay still. We will come to you.”

  People did not move from their doorsteps.

  Efficient as the soldiers were, it felt like an age before they reached Lucy and Dan’s building. Each recipient was stamped with an indelible date mark on their hand, giving them the air of inmates rather than civilians. Lucy’s throat felt dry as she watched the preceding addresses take their parcels and disappear. Were there really going to be enough?

  The truck rumbled forward to their building and stopped, the driver crunching on the handbrake but leaving the engine idling. The vehicle trembled, mirroring the unfed occupants of the street. Lucy eyed up the mounted gun turrets fearfully. She had never seen a machine gun up close before. Their abundance in movies and on TV was no preparation for actually looking down the barrel of one.

  The soldier manning the nearby turret scanned the crowd. Lucy wondered if he’d had to use it yet. Being from the National Guard, he was probably local to the Bay area. There was a chance he’d have to train it on people he knew, people he’d grown up with, even. Could he go through with it, if it came to that?

  “Hand,” barked a soldier, who was suddenly standing in front of Lucy with alarming proximity.

  “Uh,” she stuttered as he grabbed her wrist and stamped it firmly, leaving a thin inky sheen on her skin. The man moved on to Dan, while a second soldier shoved a clear, thick plastic bag full of rations into Lucy’s torso, which she narrowly avoided dropping.

  The package was smaller than she’d expected. Her mind darted back to their table of rations in the flat and she felt her cheeks burn. What if other people knew? A group nearby were already discussing the size of the bags in less than positive terms. Dan had been right: if anyone found out about their stockpile it would become a magnet as rations ran out. They had to keep their heads down.

  The second armored vehicle pulled level with them, its endless reams of ammunition poised to tear through row after row of delicate human tissue at the click of a button.

  A face on the other side of the street caught Lucy’s eye then vanished from view, obscured by the truck. Lucy gasped, craning her neck to try to see past the slow-moving vehicle.

  “What is it?” said Dan, putting an arm around her shoulder.

  The Humvee moved forwards, revealing the far sidewalk again.

  “No, I …” Lucy stared across the street at the groups of people retreating into their homes, searching for that familiar face. It had gone.

  “Lucy?” pressed Dan.

  “I … I thought I saw Cassie, is all,” she confessed. “But it must’ve been someone else.”

  “It’s dark, easy to confuse faces. Cass’ll be fine, Luce,” consoled Dan. “She will have received her rations yesterday. I’m sure she’s equally worried about you – and she needn’t be.”

  Lucy nodded meekly, her brow wrought with concern.

  “I don’t know what the deal is with days off in our new ‘jobs’,” he added, “but when we get one, we’ll go check up on her, OK?”

  Lucy squeezed his hand in appreciation and they joined the whispering march of their fellow residents back into the building. As they climbed the stairwell, illuminated by an assortment of handheld flashlights, everyone fell into a slow, synchronized step until the crowd gradually thinned out floor by floor, with people quietly slipping into their abodes, away from further scrutiny.

  FIVE

  Medic

  _____________________________

  It was six days since the Northside ration drop. They’d managed to make their government-given provisions stretch the whole week, but only by supplementing them with food from their own supply on at least three occasions. Being underweight was not something Lucy’s father had ever valued in a human being – it was “impractical and goddamned ungrateful”, as he’d put it during her high-school crash-dieting phase. He’d been right, of course – a malnourished farm worker was no kind of worker at all; you needed strength to be useful.

  Both she and Dan were still adjusting to the five-hundred-calorie reduction in their daily intake. Lucy flopped onto the bar stool that evening, kicking off her shoes and bringing her left leg up to rest across her right as she began to massage the ball of her foot.

&nb
sp; “Long day?” called Dan from the bedroom.

  Before Lucy could answer, the overhead lights flicked on, accompanied by the familiar clunk and hum of the refrigerator buzzing back to life.

  “Oh my god!” she cried, jumping to her feet. “Oh my god!”

  She marveled at the ceiling lights as if seeing them for the first time.

  Dan rushed through from the bedroom, a stream of joyful expletives tumbling out as he bounded towards her. The two jumped and whooped with unbridled glee.

  “Phones!” he exclaimed, suddenly, rushing away to reunite his defunct device with a charger.

  Lucy ran the other way and into the bathroom. “Oh sweet Lord it flushes, it flushes! And the shower’s working too!”

  “The TV stations are still down,” called Dan from the lounge.

  “Maybe they didn’t know the power was coming back on?” said Lucy, joining him, breathless with excitement.

  “Good point – I’ll leave it switched to the news channel in case it comes back. Hey, do you think –” Dan paused, moving quickly over to the window and lifting the curtain back. “Luce, the street lights are back on! And look – people!”

  The street lighting brought Lucy an overwhelming sensation of comfort. The muffled jubilation of neighbors above and below them resonated through the floorboards as Lucy took in the families and individuals dancing in their homes across the street, their rooms illuminated for the first time since the impact.

  “Hello! Hey!” said Dan, waving emphatically at a family almost directly opposite them who were also at their window, taking in the phenomenon. They waved back, the kids jumping as they did so, everyone’s usual social inhibitions and norms stripped away in the face of this overwhelming, unifying return to normality.

  One of the kids stopped bouncing and began pointing to the right of Dan and Lucy. The girl’s parents followed her gaze, their smiles faltering. Following the direction in which the child was pointing, Lucy’s eyes tracked across the street and all the way to her and Dan’s kitchen.

  “Shit!” she cried, rushing through and hastily drawing the blinds closed.