by Tom Abrahams
“Of course,” he said.
“Just wondering,” said Marcus. He shrugged and took a sip of water.
“That question says more about what you think about Lou than it does me,” admitted Dallas.
“Maybe,” contemplated Marcus.
“His name is David.”
“Who?”
Dallas frowned again. “The boy. My son. His name is David, after Lou’s father.”
Marcus drew the glass toward him for another sip. “Yeah?”
“His middle name is Battle.”
Marcus stopped mid-drink. He glanced at the photo over the top of the glass. Setting it down, he reached out and dragged the photograph across the table, the glossy paper sliding like silk. He held it up to look at it again. He drew it closer then pushed it back, alternately widening his eyes and squinting.
“You blind?” asked Dallas.
Marcus was the one who frowned now, feigning offense. Lowering the photograph, he ignored the question and snorted. “Stupid name,” he said, placing the photograph on the table.
“David?”
“Battle. Must have been your idea.”
“What’s your problem with me?” asked Dallas. “I don’t remember you being so ornery, so disagreeable. I mean, you weren’t all roses and cherries, but you weren’t all thorns and pits neither.”
Marcus tapped the photo with his finger. “My problem is this. You should have known better. One is a blessing. Two is a curse.”
Dallas held his glass on the table with both hands, rubbing his thumbs up and down. His eyes were on the table, or somewhere beyond it.
“My problem,” Marcus said, “is that you show up here unannounced, acting like nothing happened, and you want my help.”
He ran his hand across the table, wiping a fine layer of dust with his fingers. The dust bloomed and dissipated.
“My problem,” said Marcus, “is that you couldn’t keep it in your pants. So you put your whole family at risk. You put Rudy and Norma at risk. Now you want to put me at risk.”
Dallas’s brows twitched and he lifted his gaze to meet Marcus’s. His eyes were glossy. His frown having shifted from disappointment, or judgmental, to sadness, he opened his mouth to speak but didn’t.
“What?” said Marcus. “Spit it out. You’d best start selling.”
Dallas swallowed hard. “We didn’t think we could have any more. It took so long to have the first. It was such a difficult birth that we thought we were good.”
“Clearly you weren’t.”
His jaw tense, Dallas tightened his grip on the glass. “I didn’t come here for a lecture.”
“Then what did you come here for?” asked Marcus.
“We need you to get Lou and the baby to safety,” said Dallas. “There’s a place we know about. They take in families with multiple kids. They shelter them, keep out the guard.”
“Why not one of those coyotes?” asked Marcus. “You know, the guys you pay to get you across the wall to wherever it is you want to be?”
“They’re not trustworthy,” said Dallas. “They turn you over to the guard or the vigilantes if they have a chance for more cash or drugs or whatever.”
Marcus leaned back in his chair, the fabric cushion shifting uncomfortably underneath his weight. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. His skin was dry, leathery almost, and touching it reminded him of his age. What was he now? Sixty? He’d lost track. His thumb found a tight spot near the base of his skull, and he dug in to loosen the tension.
“Okay,” said Marcus, “I’ll bite. Let’s say I leave the comforts of my home, as I’ve been known to do more than once in the past, and I manage to get to Baird. Then what? We caravan with a pregnant woman north to this… Valhalla?”
“She won’t be pregnant when we get there,” said Dallas. “She’s almost due.”
Marcus shook his head and snorted. “You’re serious? You know there are vigilantes out there. It’s not just the guard looking for pregnant women or families with more than one kid. That’s just the first thing.”
“I’m serious,” offered Dallas. “It would be you, me, Lou, and the two kids. What’s the second thing?”
“You left your woman to deliver the baby by herself?”
“You used to know Lou,” said Dallas, a hint of a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “She’s nobody’s woman. And that’s the first thing.”
“True,” said Marcus. “And the second?”
“She’s got Rudy and Norma.”
Both men sat there for a couple of minutes, letting the silence fill the space between them. They took sips of water, Dallas more hungrily than Marcus. He emptied his glass, tipping it almost upside down to inhale every last bit of it.
Marcus finished his too and then took both of them back to the counter to refill. He brought the refills back to the oak table and raised his glass toward Dallas, tilting his head with a question.
“This place you wanna go, you think it really exists? I’ve heard it’s all myths and rumors made up to make people think they’ve got hope. Either that or it’s a trap to draw out the families they can’t find on their own. The guard doesn’t just hunt babies here, they do it south of the wall too. Plus there are the tribes. It’s a tough journey to the wall, and then once you cross it, it gets even tougher. I don’t know my way north of the wall like I do south of it.”
Dallas sat back in his seat and surveyed the kitchen. His gaze shifted from one side of the room to the other before settling again on Marcus. “You seem to hear a lot of things for being isolated out here,” said Dallas, suspicion creeping into his voice. “Maybe you’re not as much of a loner, afraid of hurting the people you supposedly love, as you claimed to be.”
Marcus sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He smiled. It was a genuine smile but was absent joy or humor. It was the smile of a man who understood that nobody knew who he was, what his motivations were, how he managed his lifestyle the best he could. He leaned forward on his elbows and laced his fingers together as if forming a church steeple, and shook his head.
“I never said I was isolated,” he said. “I’m insulated. There’s a difference. I keep a layer between the world and me. That’s it, a layer. I’m not separate from everything, Dallas. I never said that. You know that. I explained myself again and again.”
“Yeah, well,” said Dallas, looking at the table as he spoke, “it sure seemed like isolated and separate to us. To Lou.”
Marcus puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. He’d had this conversation before. Many times. It had been years, sure. But sitting here talking about his life choices and how they’d hurt others raked away the layers of insulation he’d worked to build between himself and anyone who meant anything to him.
“I’m not doing this. You came to me, Dallas. You wanna judge my life, find the door and walk out the way you came. I’m not that interested in a trip along the yellow brick road that leads to Oz anyhow. Been there, done that.”
Dallas shifted in his seat and the chair creaked on the floor. Taking another sip of water, his face softened. “Sorry,” he said. “You’re right. I’m not here to open old wounds. I’m here to ask for your help. We need you, Marcus. Lou needs you.”
“You said that.”
“We know where the refuge is,” said Dallas. “It’s not a myth or a trap.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do.”
Marcus studied Dallas. The dude believed what he was saying, even if he was wrong. After so many years, in so many places, Marcus could tell when someone was telling the truth and when he was lying. Maybe it was all the years alone. His senses were fine-tuned to better read people’s expressions, their intonations, their body movements.
“Okay,” said Marcus. “Where is it, then?”
“Hold up,” said Dallas. “Before I tell you that, you in or out?”
Marcus picked up the glass, keeping his eyes locked on Dallas. The water was cool, but closer
to room temperature than the first one. Swishing it around in his mouth, he took his time considering the question.
He didn’t want to leave his home. He’d done it once for a woman he didn’t know. A second time he did it for revenge. Neither of those had been good reasons at the time. The first was as selfless an act as man could offer. The second was as selfish as was possible.
This time was somewhere in the middle. It was selfless to help Lou and the children he’d never met. It was selfish to do it for himself, to peel back that insulation and do something that would make him feel a part of things again. He swallowed the water and exhaled.
“I’m in.”
CHAPTER 3
APRIL 17, 2054, 1:00 AM
SCOURGE +21 YEARS, 7 MONTHS
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Sally Miller pulled the hoodie over her head and tugged on the drawstrings. Sucking in as deep a breath as her lungs could hold, she centered herself. Slowly, through pursed lips, she exhaled.
“You ready?” she asked, her hand on the shoulder of the nameless woman next to her. The woman had a name, of course, but Sally didn’t know it. She didn’t want to know it. Plausible deniability.
The woman nodded and drew the newborn closer to her chest. The child was swaddled in black fabric, as was the woman. They needed to be as invisible as possible. This was, after all, the post-Scourge, mid-drought version of the underground railroad.
“We’ve got five blocks,” she said. “Stay close to me. Do exactly what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it. The railroad works like this. I’m your first conductor. I’ll take you to the second. The second takes you to the third. I don’t know anything about your journey beyond my leg of it. Got it?”
The woman nodded again. Her eyes were wide, full of the anxiety of suspicion of someone on the run. Sally wished she could put black fabric over the woman’s eyes. They were so wide, so white, they almost glowed in the relative darkness of the garage.
Sally held up two fingers. “It’s just the two of you, right? I’m making sure. Just two?”
“Yes,” said the woman, her voice trembling. “My husband is with our daughter. They’re taking—”
Sally held her palm to the woman’s face and shushed her. “I don’t need to know. I don’t want to know. All I need to know is that it’s two of you and that you can follow my instructions exactly as I give them.”
“Okay,” said the woman. “I can do that. I can follow you.”
Sally offered a flat smile and motioned with her head. “This way.”
They maneuvered through the stacked boxes, old bicycles, and yard equipment toward a door at the side of the detached garage. The woman tripped over a pile of PVC piping, but Sally caught her.
Sally reached for the child. “I can carry the baby if you want.”
The woman turned away from Sally, her white eyes turning black as they narrowed. She took a step back, almost tripping again before she steadied herself.
Sally waved her hands. “Never mind,” she said, trying to reassure the woman. “It’s fine. It’s fine. You carry her.”
“It’s a boy,” said the woman, the tension easing in her posture. “His name is—”
Sally put her hand on the woman’s mouth. “I don’t need to know. I don’t want to know.”
The woman appeared hurt at first, offended, that Sally wouldn’t want to know the child’s name. Then understanding washed across her worried face and she nodded.
“Let’s go,” said Sally. She checked her watch. “We’re thirty-five seconds late. We’ve got to make that up. As soon as I open the door, you need to hustle.”
Without saying anything else, Sally punched in the electronic code to the side garage door and it clicked. She tugged on the handle and opened the door wide enough to fit through. When the woman crossed the threshold, Sally shut the door behind them. It hummed and the lock clicked back into place.
They were in the heart of Atlanta, the seat of the government since the Scourge. Sally didn’t remember the Scourge. Her mother and father had succumbed to violence in the immediate aftermath of the pneumonic plague. The plague killed two-thirds of the world’s population. Violence killed much of what was left. She’d survived both.
Now she was smuggling women from the capital city to beyond the reach of the Population Guard, the elite branch of the military charged with policing the nation’s unsustainable birthrate. Now she needed a drink. Her head pulsed at the temples. A stiff drink straight from the bottle was the prescription. She should have taken a dose before the mission. Sally flexed a trembling hand in and out and held it in a fist. Now was not a good time to take a break from the thing that fixed her, kept her steady and in control.
Sally hurried along an alley that ran behind a block of houses on the city’s north side. Sensing the woman at her hip, she pressed forward at a pace between a fast walk and a jog. She resisted the urge to run, knowing that would draw attention to them. It was early morning, and the only people out this time of night were drunks, hookers, drunk hookers, drunks looking for hookers, and the Pop Guard.
They reached the end of the alley, and Sally held out her arm to stop the woman. Pressing her body against the side of a wooden fence, she peered around the corner toward a two-lane road that ran north and south. Four blocks to go.
“Let’s go,” Sally whispered.
They hugged the edge of the fence line that ran parallel to the road. The hard-packed dirt and low clumps of weeds crunched under their feet as they hurried north. So far, so good. A dog barked in the distance, surprising Sally. She didn’t know dogs existed anymore. The drought had forced people to do things people hadn’t previously done in order to survive.
They reached another intersection, where the fence line ended. Sally crouched down. Behind her, she felt the woman doing the same. The baby cooed, and Sally shot the woman a glare before eyeing the child.
“Keep it quiet,” she said. “Three blocks to go.”
The woman adjusted the black fabric over the baby’s face, blousing it like a tent to give the child room to breathe.
Sally started to move but froze instead. In the distance she heard a sound that sent a chill along her spine. The hairs on her arms stood on end. She glanced back toward the source of the noise, then looked skyward.
She couldn’t see the helicopter, but the thwack and thump of its rotors against the still, dry Georgia air were unmistakable. The expression on her face must have betrayed her concern. The woman touched her arm.
“What’s wrong?”
Sally smiled weakly. “Nothing. But we need to move even faster now, and I’ve got to take an alternate route. Stay close.”
She should have timed it better. Sally knew when the patrols would happen. They were like clockwork. Had she misjudged? This was a mistake. She’d correct it.
She stood and led the woman along an uneven sidewalk replete with cracks, lifted seams, and chunks of missing concrete.
The whir and beat of the helicopter grew louder. It was getting closer.
They hopped and danced as if avoiding land mines, moving swiftly and quietly toward another alley. This time, Sally didn’t stop. She pivoted ninety degrees and bolted to the next block.
At that moment, as they dashed across the street toward the alley, a bright white light nearly blinded Sally. She didn’t stop. The woman didn’t stop. They hit the alley, rounding the corner as fast as they could go now. The worn rubber soles of Sally’s shoes slid against the thin topcoat of loose dirt and gravel that coated everything in this town, but she maintained her balance and her momentum as she gathered speed.
The light followed them, searching for them, skimming across the alley and the houses on either side of the narrow passageway. The chopper was close enough now that the blades were deafening, and the wind whipping from their wash blew at them as they ran.
“This is the Population Guard,” blared a monotone voice over the whoosh of the wind. “Under the authority of the New Government, we order
you to stop running.”
Sally glanced over her shoulder at the moment the light hit her face. Dust swirled in the downdraft from the rotors, particulate stinging her eyes before she could close them. Now she had trouble opening them. With her eyes watering and her vision blurred, she dodged a fence post and nearly pirouetted on her toes. Her hands trembled. The shakes. She had the freaking shakes.
Push through it, she told herself. Push through it.
The woman was with her, calling to Sally, shouting something under the din of the chopper and the aural chaos it conjured around them.
Ignoring the woman, because nothing she had to say was as important as getting away from the chopper, Sally turned left. There was only a block to go now. One block.
“I repeat,” came the almost mechanical warning from the chopper above, “this is the Population Guard. You cannot escape us. If you don’t stop running and lie flat on open ground, we will open fire.”
Open fire? Seriously? In a residential neighborhood, these fascists would take aim from the sky to stop them?
She was less than a half block from the drop-off. She was breathing hard now, her muscles resisting her top speed. But she couldn’t stop. Then she sensed the woman wasn’t at her hip anymore. Sally considered not turning around, not losing her momentum, but she had to look. Getting that woman and her child to safety was her sole reason for running. There’d be no point if she failed her.
So Sally glanced sideways then over her shoulder. The woman wasn’t behind her. She was at the corner where Sally had turned left. Hiding under the brick porte cochère that extended from the front of a home toward the street. The woman leaned against one of the pillars, her head hanging, the baby at her hip.
Sally grimaced. She cursed. But she ran back to get the woman and the child. The chopper was one hundred feet up. It was swinging back around to find her.
She reached the mother and grabbed the baby from her. “Now!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. Then she ran.
