The After War

by Brandon Zenner

  “We’re going to Uncle Timothy’s cabin?”

  “Not exactly. Your father and I can’t leave yet.” She walked into the room and sat in the chair beside him. “Marty’s in Paris. He was meeting with investors about opening a third store in France, outside of the city. He can’t … they’ve grounded all international flights.” She looked at the floor.

  “Is he safe?”

  “Yes, he’s safe. But he won’t be able to leave France. Not for a while. He’s heading now for our vacation house in Bouches-du-Rhône, where he’ll have to weather things out. It’s safe there, secluded.”

  His father cut in, “I tried sending the private jet, but even that’s not allowed outside of US airspace. France and all of Europe are on lockdown. Soon, we will be too. Only domestic flights are flying. A curfew has been put in effect for many of the cities: Chicago, Boston, and I think Los Angeles. The looting has been terrible there. New York will be next.”

  “So, we have to leave now?”

  “Yes, Simon.” He cleared his throat. “You are leaving immediately. You’re not going to war.” His father pointed to the draft papers still in Simon’s hand. With all the news his father had been telling him, it was easy to forget at least for a moment this additional circumstance. “This war will only bring quick death to all who participate, I assure you that.”

  “And … you guys are leaving when?”

  His mother and father exchanged glances, and Simon knew something was up.

  “We’re not going to the cabin,” his mother said. “We still have a lot to do here at the house before we leave, and by then it will be difficult to drive all the way to British Columbia.”

  “Yeah, but, didn’t you say,” he gestured at his dad, “that we all have to leave right now? All of us. That the entire East Coast is in danger? Where are you guys going to go?”

  “Simon,” his dad said, “we’ll be leaving only a few days after you. I promise. The cabin is the safest place for you to go. It’s in the middle of the woods. No one will find you. As for us, I’m in the process of buying property in North Carolina, outside of Asheville. That’s where your mother and I will be going.”

  “Then that’s where I’m going too.”

  “No, you’re not. Your uncle’s cabin is safer. End of discussion. We’re not trying to get rid of you, Simon. You have to understand, it would be arduous on us—your mother and I—to live in the woods. The water and electricity have been turned off, and we know nothing about living off the land. But you do. The cabin outside of Asheville is a good second choice.”

  “I can take care of you. I can fish and hunt. There’s a stream with fresh water. We’ll be fine.”

  “No, Simon. We wouldn’t be fine. Not your mother and I. And it will be easier on you to care for yourself. Plus, like I said, it will be a few more days until we can leave, and by then, crossing into Canada may not be an option. I’ve entrusted someone to buy the property down south, but I don’t have the location yet. I’m sorry, but this is the way it has to be done. We don’t have the luxury of time. We’ll all meet back here, in this house, when things have calmed down. Tom said it could take about two years for the virus to die out.”

  “Two years!” The prospect of living off the land for two years was a challenging one that both intrigued and terrified him. But to do it alone? “Why that long?”

  “Because that’s what Tom Byrnes told me.”

  They were silent.

  His mother leaned forward, taking his hand in hers. “You have to realize how hard this is for us. Your brother is trapped in France, and we’re sending you off to live in a cabin alone.” She blinked as tears rolled down her face, smearing her makeup. “Please understand that we gave this much thought, and we wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t the best possible solution, for all of us. Do you understand, Simon?”

  “Is the house down south safe?”

  “Yes,” his father said. “It’s in the woods; that much I know, and it has an underground bomb shelter. I’m having it fully stocked with supplies and enough gasoline to keep a generator running indefinitely. We’ll be safe there.”

  “I still think we should all go north … but … I understand. I’ll do whatever is best for the family.”

  “We’ll be okay, Simon.” His mother hugged him, and her lilac perfume smelled strong.

  His dad sighed. “Let’s take a break from talking about this for a while, what do you say? There’s a lot to do before you go, but tonight let’s have a nice dinner, together.”

  ***

  Simon woke before dawn, kicked Winston off the bed, got dressed, and crept downstairs while the house was still silent and dark.

  He walked into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and was startled to see Emma, the household maid, already up. She was perched on a stool breathing in the vapors of a cup of coffee.

  “Emma, have you been awake for long?”

  “Simon,” the elderly lady said. “Just got up. I thought you were home. Come here, my boy.” Emma had lived and worked in the house since Simon was born and had raised him just as much as his own parents, if not sometimes more. She crossed the kitchen in her nightgown and robe to embrace Simon in her thick arms. The curlers in her hair scratched his nose. “Oh, my my, you’ve gotten so big,” she said. “And skinny, too.” Her loving hands started grabbing and poking him around the ribcage.

  “I’m okay, Emma.” He squirmed out of her grip. “I didn’t see you yesterday when I got in.”

  “I was out of town visiting my brother, Lord have mercy on him, and got home late. You’re not eating enough. Sit, let me fix you something.”

  “I’m fine, Emma. Thanks, but I have to get going. I have a lot to do today.” He wanted to get to the warehouse before it opened.

  “I know you’re busy, and that’s why you need some breakfast.”

  “I … maybe just some juice.”

  She heated the cast-iron skillet over the fire and began removing eggs and bacon wrapped in brown parchment paper from the refrigerator. She fluttered her hand at Simon. “You go on and get yourself some juice. I’m making breakfast.”

  It was impossible to refuse this lady who had waited outside of school for him almost every day of his life, watched every baseball, soccer, and football game he’d ever played, wrapped his little cuts and scraped knees in bandages, and put ice on his bruises.

  Simon sat and they ate together. The food was delicious; he was glad that he had stayed. He missed Emma. His father told him the night before that Emma would be moving with them down south, and that made him happy. But at the moment, he did not feel like discussing such things with her. Emma asked him about his class, and he told her all about it.

  “You always liked it out in parks and such,” she recounted, sipping her coffee. “I would take you to Alice Springs almost every day when you were young, and you would run and play and dirty your clothes like a young boy should. Used to make your momma so mad, me bringing you home with your knees all covered in grass stains. I would always tell her, ‘It does a boy good.’”

  Simon smiled.

  They sat and talked and ate, and when Simon was finished, he stood with his empty plate in hand.

  “That was great, Emma. Thank you so much.”

  “Nonsense. You’re too skinny, boy. Sit; I’ll make you some more.”

  “No, really, I have to go. I have to.”

  She had probably missed him more than his own mother and father—a thought that made him wince. But he missed her too, and making him breakfast was a way for Emma to slow down time and tell him all the stories about himself growing up that Simon had already heard. “I’ll be back for lunch. I promise.”

  After five minutes, Simon escaped from her and left the house. The sun was just rising, and the morning frost was melting in wet sheets across the pavement.

  Simon arrived at the warehouse around seven. The town of Mumford was almost entirely commercial. UPS and FedEx had warehouses the sizes of football fields nearby
. His family’s warehouse, one of the many owned by Kalispell Sports, was not nearly as large, but it was big enough.

  The parking lot was empty, and the ports for the commercial trucks were still closed. No one was expected in for another hour. Simon drove to the side, by the large double doors used by the staff, and noticed two pickup trucks parked with their tailgates down. He parked and killed the engine.

  He walked past the trucks on the way to the door and noticed they were half-full with boxes and supplies—dehydrated meals, bottled water, rifles, ammunition, and wool blankets. Just as he was about to grab the door handle to the warehouse, it swung open and he came face to face with a tall, skinny black man carrying a box. The man was middle-aged, the ends of his wiry hair gray, and his back bent from years of hard work.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ,” the man said. “You nearly scared me to kingdom come. Simon, is that you? Hot damn, son, you’ve grown tall.”

  “Hey, John. How’s it going?”

  “Good, my boy. Here, let me put this down.” He put the box in the trunk of the van and turned to Simon. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “I got held up.”

  Simon knew his father was letting many of the employees take whatever they needed before the looters took the rest.

  “That ain’t the car you’re taking, is it?” He pointed to Simon’s sedan. “Won’t fit much in there.”

  “No, I’ll need a van.”

  “Keys are in the office. Go to the lot out back and take your pick. You need me to show you around?”

  “I’m good, I think. I’ll find you if I need help.”

  “All right then, son.”

  Simon took a dozen keys from the rack and went to the lot. He decided on a midsized, construction-type moving van with low miles and a good service report. The lettering on the side that read Kalispell Sports would have to be painted over, to avoid any unwanted attention on the road. But other than that, the van was nice. Practically new.

  He drove the van to the entrance and entered the warehouse. Pallets upon pallets were stacked up high, towering to the ceiling. He stuck mostly to emergency ration bars with long expiration dates and high calorie counts, along with plenty of water, although he didn’t go overboard since there was a stream near the cabin. The rest of the space he crammed with blankets, a folding shovel, an axe, a saw, water filters, and various survival supplies. Room was left for the gasoline barrels that his father was having filled.

  Simon drove the van home, parked it in the garage, and walked to the house. The courtyard was bustling with activity; two new moving trucks were parked outside.

  He entered and walked past the commotion to his father’s office in the back. The door was open and his father was sitting with his back to him, looking out the window at the Ridgeline River in the distance over the ample backyard.

  Simon knocked, snapping his father out of his reverie.

  “Oh, Simon, you’re back.”

  His father was not wearing a tie. He looked strange, incomplete.

  “I’m all packed.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  The television was showing images of whole armies marching in demonstration, cell-phone clips of men firing machine guns, rockets, and flamethrowers, towns and cities exploding into smoke and ruin, but the volume was off. Classical music, Brahms perhaps, whispered from the stereo.

  His dad sighed. “All right. I have a few things to show you.” He stood and grabbed a set of keys from the desk drawer. “Follow me.”

  His dad led him through a door on the side of the room, which opened to a long hallway extending to the kitchen at the far end. Along the hallway was a bathroom, a stairway leading upstairs, and a door to the greenhouse and the outside beyond. It was sort of a secret tunnel so his dad could work, eat, and go upstairs without bumping into any staff or guests.

  Simon followed his father down the hallway, and they stopped before the door to the greenhouse. “In here.” His dad opened the door. A rush of muggy air hit them, along with the smell of dirt and earth. The greenhouse was just as Simon remembered, a large, almost two-story room, comprised of glass walls and a glass ceiling. Benches were set in rows, where the landscapers grew the flowers and plants for the yard. They were covered in bright and cheerful-looking sprouts. To the left was a little shed made out of cinderblocks where the tools and spare planters were stored.

  His dad led Simon to the shed, opened the door, and grabbed the end of a planting table inside.

  “Give me a hand,” he said. Simon grabbed the other end and they moved it over several feet.

  His father started clearing the ground in the center of the shed.

  “What are we doing?” Simon asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  When the ground was clear, his father said, “Do you remember this house when we first moved in? It’s a bit different now.”

  Simon nodded. “I think so. A little.”

  His father took two crowbars from the tools hanging on the wall and handed one to Simon. “Start with this one.” He pointed to a large paver-stone on the ground, about twelve-inch by twelve-inch. His dad fit the edge of the crowbar in the crevice between the two and began prying at the stone. “You going to help or what?”

  Simon helped him remove the stone, which was at least two inches thick and heavy, then began prying up more.

  “Do you remember after we bought this house, when we made the expansion for the office and this greenhouse?”

  “A little.”

  “Do you remember what the demo team found?”

  Simon tried to recall.

  “They found a hole underground. A room. You were young then. Does any of this ring a bell?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I remember you talking about it. A room for hiding slaves or something, right?”

  “That’s right. The house originally on this property was built well before the Civil War. Whoever lived here must have been a sympathizer for the slaves, because he built a room to hide them while they were on the move. The room was covered up and forgotten about until we started construction. The town sent a member of the historical society to inspect it and they verified that it was indeed used to hide slaves.”

  “I thought you had the room filled in?”

  “That’s what I told you.”

  They continued moving the pavers, piling them to the side, until a rectangular metal door became exposed.

  “Wow. This is cool.”

  “Yeah, it is. I had some work done to the room—made it longer, had this door installed, and put in new stairs. Some of the walls are original. I’ll show you.”

  There was a padlock on the handle, and his dad entered a code, removed the lock, and swung the door open to rest on its hinges. A dark and foreboding staircase presented itself, extending down into the earth.

  “There’s a light switch and flashlights at the bottom.” His dad led the way, and Simon followed. They descended into the darkness where the temperature dropped and the air smelled stale.

  At the bottom, his dad hit the switch and exposed lightbulbs hanging on cords from the ceiling illuminated the room. It was large and cavernous, expanding back maybe twenty or thirty feet, but the ceiling loomed only a few inches above their heads. Metal shelves lined the walls on either side, stocked with boxes and supplies, some draped with canvas sheets.

  “This, Simon, is what I call the emergency room.”

  “Yup, this is definitely cool.”

  “It won’t work as a bunker. There’s little air supply when the door is shut, and there is no toilet. I wasn’t thinking of that when I had the work done. It was only meant to keep things hidden.”

  His dad took him from shelf to shelf, showing him the various rations of food and water, the drums of gasoline, and the generator. At the far end were three tall metal safes, the tops just shy of the ceiling. His dad entered a code into each lock, and the doors swung open.

  “And this is where we keep our real valuables, not the stuff the
moving crews are taking to storage.”

  He pulled back a cloth from the first safe to reveal stacks upon stacks of cash piled to the top. It was more money than Simon had ever seen. In the next safe were boxes filled with gold and silver bars, property deeds, gems, and stocks and bonds. After a quick tour, they moved to the third safe. “This is where we keep the good stuff.” He showed Simon paintings wrapped in white cloth and tied with twine, his mother’s and grandmother’s jewelry, and photo albums of the family.

  “The temperature down here is not ideal for our good paintings, the Picassos and van Gogh. Those are in a temperature-controlled storage, but these are still worth a pretty penny.”

  His father delicately removed a few paintings and set them aside. He then reached back into the dark recesses of the safe and pulled out an old cigar box. “This is for you, Simon. Don’t tell your mother.”

  He handed Simon the box. Simon was surprised at the weight of it. He opened the lid, and there was something inside wrapped in a grease-stained cloth. His dad took the box as Simon unwrapped a perfectly preserved, and quite beautiful, Colt .45, military issue, with a spare magazine.

  “This has been in the family since World War II. It has been handed down from generation to generation, and now I pass it on to you. I’ll show you how to take it apart and keep it clean. It still works just like the day it was made.”

  Simon felt the weight and cold metal in his palm. The family owned several hunting rifles and shotguns, but his mother would not allow handguns. Absolutely not, no way, positively no.

  “She knows I have it, your mom, but she doesn’t know I’m giving it to you. It will serve you better than it will serve me. Pick out a rifle or two as well, and take plenty of ammunition. More than you think you’ll need. And then take more.”