Famine

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Do you think we’re too late?’ asked Karen, from the back. ‘My God, just look at them. They’re like crazy people.’

  ‘They’re hungry, that’s why,’ said Peter. ‘Hunger always makes people crazy. Whether it’s for food, or sex, or money.’

  ‘My wife and daughter are in there,’ said Ed, flatly.

  ‘We know,’ replied Shearson. ‘And don’t think for a moment that we’re going to leave them to the distinctly untender mercies of this mob. We’re going to think of something. Do something. Your wife and daughter must be saved.’

  ‘As well as a year’s supply of food,’ put in Della, sharply.

  ‘What’s wrong with wanting to rescue the food?’ Shearson protested, angrily. ‘Don’t you understand, you stupid woman? Didn’t you hear what that hobo character said? A year’s supply of canned food could buy you anything you could conceivably dream of. That’s edible gold in there. In fact, it’s better than gold. It’s even better than heroin. Only a limited number of addicts crave for heroin. But everybody craves for food. Give them what they want, and in a few hours, they’re begging you for more. Don’t you understand what power that food in that supermarket could give us?’

  ‘Christ, you make me heave,’ said Ed. ‘Della – there’s little enough law and order in this country as it is – why don’t you elect yourself judge and executioner and blow the senator’s fat head off?’

  A running looter collided blindly with their wagon, but carried on his way, waving a long kitchen knife.

  ‘I couldn’t execute the senator,’ smiled Della. ‘The senator is running absolutely true to character, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s fine.’

  ‘Fine? What do you mean, fine? Didn’t you hear him?’

  ‘I heard him. And that’s why I’ve been protecting him so carefully all the way from Kansas, both from you and everything else. Senator Jones has even shared half of my food ration, haven’t you, senator?’

  Ed stared at her. ‘You gave him half your food? But what the hell for?’

  ‘Because, my darling, it’s my mission to keep Senator Shearson Jones in one piece. Alive, well, and avaricious. That’s why I agreed to come west with you, instead of taking him to Washington, because you were quite right about the dangers of travelling east. Too many looters, too many marauding mobs. And my superiors would have been very irritated if I’d lost him. Or his clever young assistant.’

  ‘Will you explain this to me, in words that I can understand?’ asked Ed. He knew now that it was urgent for him to find out what was going on; although he couldn’t help himself from glancing anxiously down Franklin Avenue towards the lurid gasoline fires that now lit up the outline of the Hughes Supermarket ‘It’s very simple,’ said Della. She raised the muzzle of her rifle slightly. Not more than a half-inch, but enough for Ed to notice.

  ‘If it’s simple, then we should be able to follow it,’ put in Shearson. ‘I’d love to know why you consider my overweight carcass to be so extraordinarily valuable.’

  ‘Years ago,’ said Della slowly, as if she were speaking from a remembered script, ‘years ago – when this famine was being planned – it was decided by my superiors that as soon as the President had surrendered, a new President would immediately have to be installed in his place. But, he couldn’t be a Russian. To have a Russian President, all of a sudden, would be too much of a shock for the American people, and they would react violently. You are a violent people, as the frequent riots in your cities have shown us. Apart from that, a Russian President would find the nation too difficult to handle with any degree of success. Yours is a complex, unstable, hedonistic society. Very hard for a Russian to understand.’

  She paused. Shearson had cupped his hand to his ear as if he were hard of hearing. Peter Kaiser’s face was stiff as a meringue.

  ‘We went to considerable trouble to pick as our future Gauleiter of America an established politician who would be able to carry off the burden of Presidential duties without feeling overwhelmed by them; a man whose face was already familiar to the American public; a reassuring, fatherly figure. And yet a man whose personal morals were so flawed that he would easily be encouraged by the gift of instant Presidency and great financial wealth to assist us in taking over the administration of your country as painlessly and as quickly as possible.’

  Shearson Jones’ lips were opening and closing wordlessly.

  Della turned to him, and smiled, and said, ‘Of course. Senator Jones, our first choice for Gauleiter was you. And that is why I consider your overweight carcass so valuable, and that is why I have been cossetting you and protecting you all the way from Kansas to the Pacific ocean.’

  ‘So,’ breathed Ed, ‘we were right about Your Spread From The Sky. And I was right about you. You’re not FBI. You’re a Soviet agent.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ Della nodded.

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ puffed Shearson, scathingly. ‘You’re a Red, my dear. An economy-size Mata Hari. There’s no “manner of speaking” about it.’

  ‘But what about the Blight Crisis Appeal?’ asked Ed. ‘If you wanted Shearson for a puppet President, why did you bother to steal all those incriminating papers?’

  ‘Because they’re incriminating,’ smiled Della. ‘We like to keep our friends in line; and if Shearson ever misbehaved himself, we could quite easily oust him from power and imprison him on the evidence of his past swindles. How could the rest of the world complain about that? The man’s an obvious, proven criminal. Apart from that, we needed to confiscate his personal millions, so that he would no longer have the means to escape us, nor to bribe anybody to help him.’

  ‘And why are you telling us this confidential and privileged information?’ asked Peter Kaiser. ‘Shouldn’t you have waited until Russian troops were actually wetting their boots on Malibu Beach?’

  ‘I’m telling you because there’s no other way I could have explained that there’s been a change of plan. We’re not going to attempt to rescue Ed’s wife and daughter; and we’re not going to attempt to lay our hands on that stock of food. Look at it – there’s a full-scale riot going on down there. All the people in that supermarket will be dead in an hour, and all the food will be looted. It’s not worth the risk.’

  ‘Risk?’ asked Peter Kaiser. ‘What risk?’

  ‘The risk of losing the next President of the latest addition to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. That’s what risk.’

  Ed gripped the steering-wheel with sweaty hands. He could try to wrench the pump-gun out of Della’s hands, but he knew that it was hopeless. She would have blown his face off before he had even turned around. He stared at the leaping dames at the intersection of Highland and Franklin, and his eyes watered with hopelessness, with tiredness, and with glare.

  Shearson said, ‘I’m a man of some influence, you know, my dear Della. A figure of respect. I’m quite sure I could go some way towards quelling that mob of lunatics.’

  ‘They’d rip you apart,’ said Della. ‘They’re no better than wild animals.’

  ‘Well, if you say so,’ shrugged Shearson, drawing Ed’s Colt .45 out of his voluminous coat and pointing it at the back of Della’s head.

  Ed stared at Della in total horror. She caught the look on his face, frowned, and said, ‘Ed, what’s the—’

  Shearson fired, and Della’s face seemed to expand in front of Ed’s eyes like an over-inflated carnival balloon. Then there was blood and glass everywhere, and Della jerked forward in her seat. Ed’s ears rang with the noise of the shot.

  ‘Well,’ said Shearson, handing the .45 to Ed. ‘Severe times merit severe measures. I may be morally flawed, but I’m still a patriot. You’re next to her, Mr Hardesty. Do you mind kicking her out of the door?’

  Ed opened the driver’s door, climbed down, and walked around the hood. He opened the passenger door, and lifted Della carefully down to the sidewalk.

  Shearson said, ‘It’s more than she deserved,’ as Ed climbed up behind the steering
-wheel again.

  Ed said, ‘I made love to her once, that’s all. Now, what are we going to do?’

  ‘Well, we’re going to have to be quick, and we’re going to have to be bold,’ said Shearson, leaning forward in his seat ‘We’re pretty reasonably armed, compared with most of that mob. Shotguns against clubs. So my suggestion is that we form up these wagons of ours into some kind of a flying wedge – drive straight through to the supermarket doors – and keep the looters at bay while we let the people inside get out and while we organise any able-bodied men to load up whatever food they can.’

  Peter Kaiser ran his hand through his hair. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, senator, that seems incredibly risky. There have to be seven or eight hundred people there. Maybe more.’

  ‘I know it’s risky,’ said Shearson, with exaggerated patience. ‘But consider the alternatives. Either we spend the next six months scrabbling for food like the rest of these poor wretches, or we load ourselves up with enough sustenance to keep ourselves independent and self-sufficient. And solvent, apart from anything else. Remember you can buy yourself a woman with a can of meat.’

  Ed said, ‘I’ll have to go ask the rest of them. And the women and children will have to stay behind here someplace.’

  Shearson twisted himself around in his seat. ‘There’s a hotel back there. That looks likely. Less chance of disturbing any irate and gun-happy householders. Now, I’d get moving if I were you. The way that supermarket’s burning, it doesn’t look like we’ve got ourselves a whole lot of time.’

  It took Ed five minutes to persuade two out of the remaining three farmworkers in his convoy to join in a rescue attempt. One of them – Roy Guraing – had always had a soft spot for Season, and so he was pleased to volunteer. Nat Petersen was a little more reluctant, but he was single, and physically strong, and a good shot with a scatter-gun, and eventually Ed managed to talk him around. Jerry Stone wouldn’t go for anything. He had his wife and children with him, and in any case he thought Ed was crazy.

  ‘I’d rather throw myself into a volcano,’ he remarked. Ed shook his hand, said okay, and left him to look after the remaining two farm women, his wife, and his four children.

  Ed went back to the Chevy, started her up, slammed the door, and said, ‘Ready? Peter – you cover the right side with the pump-gun. Senator – since you’re so handy with a .45 – you cover the left. Karen – keep your head down.’

  He pulled the wagon out on to Franklin Avenue. Behind him, Roy Gurning drove on his left three-quarter flank in his Pinto wagon, and Nat Petersen drove on his right three-quarter flank in a Cutlass. Between them, the three cars formed a spearhead which took up the width of the whole road.

  ‘I just hope we know what the hell we’re doing,’ said Ed. He was sweating all over, and he couldn’t stop.

  ‘All right,’ growled Shearson, ‘Let’s go.’

  Ed waved to Roy and Nat, and then slammed his foot down on the gas. With a throaty bellow, the Chevy surged forward, right into the running crowds, with the Pinto and the Cutlass hugging close behind.

  Ed felt the wagon’s bumper hit two – three – four people. Their bodies made firm thumping noises, like huge insects hitting the windshield in summer. Someone screamed, and two men tried to run along beside him and claw the driver’s door open, but he was driving too fast, and Roy was coming up so close behind them that they had to dodge out of the way.

  Then, it was hell. They reached the intersection of Highland and Franklin and they were in the thick of it Sticks and stones drummed against the sides of the wagon, and there were screeches of agony and fright as he forced the hood of the four-wheel-drive vehicle right into the surging mob of people around the supermarket.

  He heard Peter Kaiser shoot the pump-gun four or five times. He heard windows at the back of the wagon breaking. There was a chaotic howling ocean of distorted people around him, and yet he was still driving the wagon forward – slower now, because of the dense press of bodies – but still relentlessly forward over crushed arms and legs and bursting skulls. The banging of clubs and sticks against the vehicle’s bodywork was utterly deafening, and he knew that his face was pulled into a ridiculous expression of fear and concentration, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  The last few feet were the worst. As the wagon pushed its bumpers right up to the supermarket’s doors, ten or twelve looters were caught in front of it, and shoved bodily through the wire-reinforced glass, like ribbons of raw meat through a grater. Then, with a last burst of low-gear power, Ed brought down the whole row of doors, and collided with the liquor counter.

  They had miscalculated, badly. The mob was wild and unstoppable and far more numerous than they had realised. Peter fired three more shots and his pump-gun was empty, Roy Gurning’s Pinto had been swallowed up by the crowd, and Ed glimpsed its offside wheels as it was turned over, with Roy still inside it. Nat Petersen’s car had disappeared altogether, Shearson screamed, ‘It won’t work! It won’t work! Just back, up and get the hell out of here!’

  But Ed, looking around the wrecked supermarket, had momentarily caught sight of Sally in the far corner, and nothing was going to get him out of that store without them. He forced open the Chevy’s door, pushing over two struggling looters, and elbowed and shoved his way between the shelves to where he thought he had seen them. Behind him the mob had begun to surge through the broken-open doors, and scrambled towards the stock-room. It was going to be looting first, revenge second.

  For three insane minutes, Ed remembered everything his college football coach had taught him, and he pushed and shoved and bulldozed his way through the screaming scrum of people towards the shelves at the far back of the supermarket. Then, in an instant that was too fearful to be anything but blurred, unmemorable, and confused, he had scooped Sally up in his arms, and pushed Season ahead of him, and they were fighting their way back to the wagon.

  ‘Vee!’ screamed Season. ‘I can’t see Vee!’

  ‘Get out of here!’ bellowed Ed. ‘Just get to the wagon, and let’s get out of here!’

  He was thrown back against a shelf, with an agonising jar against his back; but he managed to thrust his way on to his feet again, with Sally still awkwardly clutched in his arms, and struggled on. Somehow, bruised and sweating and grazed, his adrenalin at bursting point, he reached the wagon and threw Sally in through the door on to Shearson’s lap. Then he pulled Season up behind him, shoved her across beside Peter Kaiser, and started up the engine.

  Slowly, grindingly, the Chevy backed up into the mob. Now that the supermarket stockroom had been broken into, few of the looters took any notice of the wagon at all, but pushed their way around it. It was food they were after, and the maelstrom of fighting and bodies in the supermarket was too confusing for most of them to understand what was happening.

  They were almost out on to the roadway again when their rear bumper caught up with Roy Gurning’s overturned Pinto. Ed rocked the wagon backwards and forwards, but it still refused to budge. He pressed his foot harder on the gas and prayed to God for the Pinto to move.

  Slowly, it did, with a grating screech of metal on concrete. But now the wagon had begun to attract the attention of some of the late-coming looters – the ones who knew they were going to be lucky to pick up a few battered cans of corn. Twenty or thirty of them started tearing at the doors and banging their fists on the windows, and Ed looked out in fright at a world that seemed to be nothing but grotesque, staring faces.

  Abruptly, Shearson Jones’s passenger-door was tugged open. Shearson shrieked like a girl, and Peter Kaiser tried to reach across and grab him, but five or six pairs of hands pulled Shearson’s coat and pants, and heaved him bodily out of the wagon.

  ‘I’m a United States senator!’ screamed Shearson. ‘I’m a United States senator!’

  Then he was swallowed up by the mob; and it took all of Peter’s strength to slam the door closed again, and hold it shut against the scratching hands of frantic looters.

/>   Ed, sobbing with fear and exhaustion, jammed his foot down on the gas pedal once more. Slowly, slowly, the wrecked Pinto began to slide out of the way. Then, it toppled, and the Chevy was clear. They surged backwards into the crowds, and drove backwards with their transmission whining in protest all the way to La Brea Avenue, almost a quarter-mile.

  Ed stopped the wagon when they reached La Brea, and turned forwards in his seat to look at the supermarket. It was blazing from sidewalk to roof now, with huge tongues of fire licking at the night with a lasciviousness that could only remind him of greed, and pain, and hatred.

  He stared at Season. She was wide-eyed, shocked, scarcely able to speak. Sally, in the back seat, was whimpering and shivering.

  Then Ed held his hand over his mouth to try and stop the tears. But he couldn’t; they ran freely down his cheeks; and they sparkled in the dickering glare of the burning supermarket as if his eyes were on fire, too.

  *

  The next morning, when the burned-out shell of the supermarket was abandoned, they went back. Season walked amongst the bodies which lay between the empty shelves while Ed stood silently by the smashed and blood-smeared doors.

  ‘Vee’s not here,’ she said at last. ‘Nor Carl. I can’t see Mike Bull, either. They must have escaped. I knew this girl, though. Clara, her name was.’

  From outside, Ed heard Peter calling, ‘Ed – come here. In the parking lot. And come on your own. Don’t bring Sally.’

  Ed walked around the side of the building to the parking-lot. It was strewn with twisted shopping-carts and burned-out automobiles. But Peter was standing in the far corner, where it seemed as if another, smaller, fire had been burning; and where there was an elaborate arrangement of shopping-carts which seemed to have been linked together to form a kind of barbecue.

  When he was fifteen feet away, Ed realised what it was, and what had happened. Beside it, in a congealing heap, lay the naked remains of Senator Shearson Jones. Inside it, still half-cooked, were strips of flesh that had been cut from his thighs, his arms, and his belly.