The Long Summer

by Rod Rayborne

  He had thought he heard the far away bark of dogs the night before. It had lasted only a moment as he was drifting off to sleep and then silence closed in again. It was easy for him to believe there in the dark that he had simply imagined it, hearing what he had wanted to hear. On the other hand, the sounds did cause him a narrow twinge of fear. Dogs could be a problem in a city devoid of fresh food. In a city of the dead, he hoped they liked their meat well done.

  He realized then that the sky had brightened again, a square of sunlight crossing the sidewalk to move onto the tabletop. He put his hand into the light. It was warm but not like it had been. Temperatures were beginning to fall, he noted. Though still over one hundred, the blast furnace heat was gone as well as the dreadful flames he'd seen in the sky for the last two days. At least for now. He looked up towards the brighter area where he knew the sun rested behind tan colored clouds and let the light warm his face, closing his eyes.

  The sound of paper again disturbed him from his reverie. Feeling lonely, Bennett stood and walked out into the street. Weaving between the other cars, he approached the cab, noting the shattered windows through which the noise had come. Poking his head into the drivers' side window, he saw the body of the cabbie lying across the front seat, mouth open, head tilted back violently like a dead pelican.

  In the back, his fare was also lying at an odd angle, one foot hanging out the window opposite him. On her face, a serene look startled him, making him wonder what her last thoughts might have been. Across her thin suit-jacket, a newspaper rustled in the slight cross breeze wafting through the broken windows of the cab. He reached in and took the paper, turning to lean back against the seared body of the cab. He flipped the paper open. Lurid headlines screamed back at him.

  A Prominent Washington Senator was being accused of sexual misconduct with a secretary in his New York field office. After a three-month romance, she had come forward to say that she had been tricked into the affair and her lawyer was demanding ten million dollars in compensatory damages for trauma.

  Beneath that, another smaller headline stated that a peace deal between Israel and Palestine had been scuttled when three Palestinian youths had tossed a pipe bomb into a heavily crowded outdoor market in Tel Aviv, killing and injuring forty eight men, women and children.

  New allegations of hacking were being leveled at tech firms in both China and Russia. The US was threatening to use military force against the countries in question. Both countries denied the allegations. China stated that it had intercepted a dozen attempts by the US to hack into official government computers, an accusation the US had yet to respond to.

  A majority of lawmakers in both the House and the Senate, in a rare show of unity, joined together to declare homelessness in America a national blight. Divided as to how it should be handled, new penalities including imprisonment for up to a year per violation were being floated.

  A popular actress had been awarded Special Recognition by the Screen Actors Guild for her 'empowered leadership role' in the graphic PG-rated flick, Fuck.

  Below that, a man had been tackled by police and arrested for indecency after being spotted by a passerby looking at photos of swimsuit models on his phone at a bus stop.

  And at the bottom of the page, independent experts were claiming that wifi signals were causing a calcification of the pineal gland of the brain, blocking it's ability to produce melatonin and leading to an epidemic of insomnia. Industry analysts scoffed at the claims stating that their tests proved that wifi signals actually enhanced sleep in laboratory animals. Full story inside.

  Bennett looked up at the sky again. It had cleared more, the water in the street evaporating in a cool wave, the whole delivering the sense of a gentle spring afternoon. He looked back down at the newspaper in his hand. Tossing it into the street, he went back to hiss pack, his mood unaccountably brighter. Pulling them on, he walked towards the south, a merry glint in his eye. If anyone had been standing nearby, they might have heard him whistling.

  Chapter Thirty Five

  S ince exiting the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, the brief storm had ceased and the temperature had fallen to the high 90's. Still, since the rain, Sofia began to think about expanding her wardrobe. Fresh under things and shorts, Armani or not, to start with sounded nice. Now that the sky had brightened again after the rain, she supposed a pair of sunglasses might be in order as well. Something to compliment her jewelry.

  She realized that she was hungry again. It had taken her an hour to get out of the hotel and another two to walk to Russet Street. On the way, she spotted a Rossetti's Chocolate store. A grin splitting her face, she jogged towards the building, dropping her pack outside. Entering, she was unsurprised to see the familiar ruin she had come to expect wherever she went, but crushed to see that the vats of chocolate were now nothing more than a thin brown layer that had boiled out onto the floor and hardened there. Now, fired in place, it reacted less like a delicious confection under her boots and more like polished marble. Walking through the store, she slipped on it twice before deciding to leave. No point breaking my neck for something I can skate on, she thought.

  What she really craved was a warm meal. Something more substantial than donuts and soda. Her stomach had been feeling a little off kilter since her last pack of Ho-Ho's earlier that morning. A big chicken burrito sounded wonderful. That and an iced tea. She laughed at the idea.

  My iced tea days in LA are over, she thought.

  Walking another block, she stopped in front of Pedro's, a small Mexican deli and looked inside. The store reeked of spoiled food and spoiled bodies but spotting a sliding top chest refrigerator near the front counter, she walked in anyway. As she expected, the glass in the refrigerator doors had been blown out, most of it covering the food that had been stored inside.

  Beneath it, she could see tarts, sandwiches and empanadas. Wrapped in cellophane, she supposed them home made by the cost conscious owners of the deli. Still, they didn't look too bad. She took out one of the empanadas and, unwrapping it, took a tentative nibble on one corner of the pastry. Having exposed the meat filling, a faint rancid odor floated up to her nostrils mixed with the scent of beef. She wrinkled her nose but didn't drop the pastry.

  Finding the taste not too objectionable, she took another, larger bite. It definitely had turned but the spicy filling was too good to pass up, especially after three days of packaged sweets. She wolfed it down and grabbed the rest, another four, to carry and eat as she walked. Before leaving the store, she went back to the non-refrigerated drinks and picked up the only unexploded drink she saw, a liter size can of tea. Then crunching back to the front of the store, she stepped through the missing window and continued down the street, munching the meat pastry.

  She felt a warm glow suffuse her cheeks after the third empanada, happy that she could ignore the spoilage and just enjoy her first genuine meal in days.

  The streets were quiet. Oppressively so. For the first time since she had awakened to a silent city, she felt lonely. She had been disgusted by the sight and smell of the dead, of course, but having grown up with shock TV and guts-y video games, her reaction to them was far less severe than that of a woman from decades earlier who might have experienced nothing bloodier on screen than Bela Lugosi gnawing on a woman's neck. Rather than fear, for Sofia the ever softening faces of the dead, personalities seeping away with the black ooze that dribbled from noses and mouths, had begun to make her feel alone.

  She stopped then, sliding her pack off one shoulder at a time. Dropping it to the ground, she unzipped a side pocket and pulled out her phone. It didn't turn on when she had tried it at work, but she was fairly sure that it would now. Other than a cracked screen, the body was undamaged. She picked it up and pressed the home button. The screen didn't react. She tried again. Nothing. She frowned. It should work. She shook the phone and tried one more time. It was dead. She doubted that the battery was the problem because she had charged it the morning of the Blow and, of course, hadn't used it sin
ce then. It must have been more damaged than she had thought. Still, she was loath to toss it. It had all of her friends' names and numbers in the contacts list, not to mention a lot of great selfies she had taken with them.

  But her pack was already too heavy and she had considered dumping things from it far more valuable then one broken cell phone. She had to find another, a shiny new model somewhere. With that thought in mind, she reluctantly left her broken phone on the broken sidewalk and continued on her way.

  Another mile passed when she spotted a familiar sign, a yellow price tag shaped logo lying in the street, the sign fractured, missing most of its letters.

  She brightened. Thoughts of new phones floated through her brain. Better, she had friends around the state, close friends in Long Beach she could call who must have been worried sick about her.

  Surely the disaster doesn't extend that far south, she thought.

  It would be a hassle for them to come get her, she knew, road blockages and such, but not like what it had been for her. They could drive up and wait for her to emerge to a hero's welcome. As the only survivor of such a horrible disaster, she'd be famous. And so would her friends, by extension. Rich and famous. The weight of the treasures on her back felt wonderfully reassuring just then. This was going to be a story no one else on Facebook would ever be able to top. Everyone would want to be her friend! She felt flush again. No one would ever treat her like a peasant again. She was a lady. A real lady.

  The warm feeling spread from her face to her body. Sofia stopped and looked down at her belly. The warmth had moved there, followed by a heavy gurgling in her stomach. Then something deep down made her throw her pack aside and run out into the street. The spoiled empanadas.

  Yeah, she thought miserably. A real lady.

  Chapter Thirty Six

  D eputy Commander Joe 'Eagle Eye' McCann sat in his quarters looking at a monitor on the desk before him. It displayed the same animated graphic as the wall screen in the Command Center. His eyes, brows knitted, looked a mixture of confusion and inquisitive curiosity. He replayed again and again the moments before the first ICBM's were spotted by NORAD's early warning system arching over the Arctic.

  The missiles came from both sides of the polar ice cap, one hundred and five red trails in all. They were met by blue trails arching up towards them, American anti-missile missiles. Eighty-two of them were intercepted over Canada, the north Pacific and the north Atlantic. An astounding success rate. Eighty-two red trails on the animation winked out.

  Still, twenty-three had gotten through. The lat/long of the likely impact points began to flash on the map while the missiles were still in flight. They came on as an intermittent wave, their trajectories giving the globe the look of a balding man who had combed his remaining twenty-three hairs over the top of his head in the most advantageous way possible.

  The trails then disappeared followed by twenty-three simultaneous red X's flashing over some of America's most iconic cities. McCann rotated the globe with the cursor so that he could watch the moment the missiles lifted off. At exactly 0136 hours, Saturday last, inbound ICBM's appeared on the screen, taking to the air from four different locations in Russia, two in China and one in the Ukraine.

  McCann frowned again. He rotated the globe once more and watched the simultaneous impacts. A knock sounded at the door. Reluctantly he punched a button on the keyboard, blackening the screen and swiveled towards the door.

  "Come," he called.

  The door swung open, a young soldier stepping into the room. He saluted enthusiastically and waited for the Deputy Commander to invite him into the room. McCann repressed a smile. Give it a few years, he thought. If you're still this excited by the end of your tour, you're after my job.

  McCann bade him enter. The man stepped crisply into the room, saluted again, then handed McCann a sealed envelope.

  "From Lieutenant General Brooks, Sir." He stood then, waiting should McCann choose to use him to respond.

  McCann flipped the envelope over, sliding his finger through the bit of tape on the back. Pulling it open, he read:

  "Sorry about the formality Joe. Phone not safe. Lowry in CC. Sober. Is calling for full deployment of Army units, Marines and National Guard to major cities across the NSA citing possible incursions of enemy combatants or home grown terrorists. Says all commanders must respond only to him. Has final say in all issues of National Security. Thoughts? Will."

  McCann smiled when he saw a crossed out US in exchange for the new designation. He looked thoughtful, absently crumbling the note in his hand into a tight ball.

  "Tell the Lieutenant General I'll be there in a minute."

  "Yes, Sir." The soldier saluted once again, twisted on one foot and marched out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  McCann turned back to the monitor, punched the private button again. The screen flared to life. He studied it a moment longer, then hit the off button.

  He pulled a lighter from his pocket and leaned over an empty metal trash bin next to his desk. Lighting the note from Brooks, he watched it drop ash into the can. Then, spinning in his chair, he stood and walked out of the room.

  Acting President Lowry stood in the Command Center surrounded by several uniformed officers and military police. Near them, two men in freshly pressed three-piece suits. Lawyers, McCann thought disgustedly, brushing past them. Lowry stood solidly, sober and glowering at Lieutenant General Brooks, an angry look on his face. His expression of hate was transferred to Deputy Commander McCann when he walked into the room.

  "McCann, so good of you to join us. I was just filling in Lieutenant General Brooks on a few of the details for our putsch into the country. It's a new day, a glorious day for The New States of America! A new direction has been chosen and the country is primed to lead the world to a better tomorrow.

  He turned to the 5'x8' metal table with a screen of the same proportions inset in the top. On its bright touch screen surface, a map of the country shone. Perfectly bisecting the map was a black X centered on the town of Lebanon, Kansas. Other than that, no state boundaries were showing.

  "This here indicates our new state borders." He pointed to the X. "We have over one hundred armored divisions spread around the country locked and loaded, just waiting for my word to begin our new directive. That is, to secure the country from all enemies both foreign and domestic.

  "On the international front, Russia has taken such a severe beating that within a day of our response to their unprovoked aggression, they've already sued for peace. Hypersonic missiles notwithstanding. A day! Think about how many years, decades, we've lived under the threat of annihilation from them. A day.

  "China is proving more obstinate. Nevertheless, their ability to inflict further damage on either our allies or us has been heavily curtailed. We expect some effort at reconciliation with the coming days or weeks. Until then, the sixth fleet is continuing to pound their cities with enough firepower to encourage a sooner rather than later submission."

  Brooks cut him off angrily.

  "Why are we hitting their cities? Since 1977, the Geneva Protocol directed that targets be limited to military only sites, even if there are military objectives inside cities. Cities are full of civilians who play no part in the prosecution of any war efforts. It's murder!"

  "We've found the tactic of mercy to be ineffective. The Chinese are a shrewd people. Inscrutable, isn't that the word? If we don't want to be caught up in a messy, expensive and protracted war, we have to take the fight to them where it hurts most. Their economy. And that happens to be focused primarily in their cities. Civilian losses are an unfortunate component of modern warfare, General. You more than anyone should know that. Collateral damage. The sooner this effort is accomplished, the more lives will be saved."

  "It's savage!" Brooks shouted back.

  "Nevertheless, Brooks, here we are. But let me outline for you our homegrown efforts on behalf of The New States. In a few minutes, I'm going to order the deployment of our dom
estically stationed forces around the country to move in and take control of all major cities by any means necessary. Already we've received word that dozens of militias and tens of thousands of individually armed citizens are attempting to wrest power away from our state governments. A situation that's been permitted to grow thanks to our weak gun control laws. That, of course, can no longer be allowed.

  "At 6:00 a.m. this morning, I declared a state of Martial Law across the country. The penalty for infractions of that law will be short, sure and swift. Moreover, any resistance by persons or groups of individuals anywhere within our borders will be treated as an attack upon the country. No mercy will be shown to violators.

  "Casualties cannot be avoided sadly, but with the firepower of our military, resistance should be short lived. Once these undesirables have been mopped up, order will prevail. A month from now, our country and the world will be set on a new course. A better one. It's a great day, not just for the country but for the world."

  "What about that little document called the Constitution? Is that a 'situation' you plan to remedy as well?"

  "Extraordinary times, Brooks. Extraordinary times. Our military needs to operate in safety. How is it going to do that when every other gun toting right-wingnut is out there targeting anything that looks like a badge? Just where do your sympathies lie, General?"

  "Thus with one sweep of your philosophy, you're wiping away more than two hundred years of American civil liberties. Convenient, all things considered," McCann said icily.

  "The needs of the State outweighs the needs of the few."

  "Close. Want to try that again?"

  "You men arrived at your esteemed positions by persistence in a country without direction. A country renown for its atrophy, political infighting and corruption. Resolve without direction equals anarchy. 'Rights' brought this country to its knees. Endless fighting over 'Freedoms', 'Privacy', 'Liberties', divided the State and allowed the calamity we're faced with today to occur. Individualism is divisive. A house divided against itself cannot stand. The State must be united. When the needs of the one becomes more important than the needs of the many, the State dies."