The Long Summer

by Rod Rayborne

  "If you are approached by agents of The New States of America, you are required by law to assist them free of charge in any way they require including, but not limited to, any supplies you may have on hand or have stored away. This includes providing any and all foodstuffs, drink and shelter demanded of you.

  "Failure to do so will be considered an attack on the Sovereignty of the New States of America and will be met with lethal force. Additionally, the Government has enacted a weapons ban for all non-enlisted citizens of the New States of America. As such, possession of any firearm is now a criminal offense. All such weapons must be surrendered immediately to a law enforcement agency near you or they will be forcefully confiscated. Any person who resists said confiscation will be met with lethal force according to the Domestic Weapons Act EI:21.

  "This is a message from The New States of America. This has been the Voice of America. This message will be repeated in Russian, French, Spanish, English, Portuguese, German, Korean, Mandarin and Cantonese. Good luck and God bless."

  Gordon snapped off the radio and looked at Sofia. He was startled to see tears in her eyes. He laid a hand over hers.

  "We're going to get through this. I promise. We just need to be strong." He squeezed her hand.

  "It's not that. It's just..."

  "What? What is it?" He spoke gently. The poor girl was obviously traumatized.

  "With so much destroyed. So many places gone..."

  "Go on."

  "Well..."

  "Yes?"

  "What am I going to do with all my stuff?"

  Chapter Forty Five

  M ika turned from the window and glanced at each of her friends gathered around the table. Then she lifted the coffee pot off of its wood pellet burner and refilled their cups. They sat, each lost in his or her own thoughts, the sound of the liquid filling their cups barely interrupting the silence.

  The door banged open and Nate strolled loudly into the room. The men jumped and turned towards him irritably. Cyrus peered at the man with a grimace.

  "Can't you ever walk into a room without slamming something?"

  "Let's you know I'm around. Wouldn't want you guys to worry about me." His hair hung thick across his eyes, heavy on his collar. He pulled back a chair, the legs thumping across the floor.

  "More like worry that something didn't. And nice going on the scratches. But I guess it ain't your floor."

  "I don't mind at all," Mika said with a smile. "Nate can scratch my floor anytime."

  The men set up a holler at that, Rusty leaning forward and mussing Nate's hair good naturedly.

  Ignoring her comment, Cyrus scolded, "Why don't you get a haircut? I'm tired of looking at you through that tangle. How does he rate anyway, Mika?"

  "He's cuter than you are, you crotchety old man." Mika leaned over Nate's shoulder and gave him a peck on the cheek. He grinned broadly at the others, wagging his eyebrows knowingly. That brought more guffaws.

  Nate was the youngest member of the group, Mika a good ten years his senior. He was also the only pre-med student they knew. As such, he was an indispensable part of their circle, at least when it came to medical issues. Besides, the others in the room were used to Mika's good natured ribbing. They piffted and groaned sourly, shaking their heads. Finally Cyrus squinted at Nate.

  "So, how's our guest doing, Romeo?"

  "How do you think he is? Shot clean through the neck. He may survive, though I can't say just why, but I doubt he'll ever speak again."

  Floyd turned in his chair, arm over the back, to look at Mika.

  "And you s'pect it was the Army done it?" he asked.

  "Yup. Well, people working for them. No uniforms. One of their 'clean-up' crews, I think."

  "Bastards," Cyrus said.

  "Only saw one of them. Maybe the only one of that bunch who survived the refinery blow. They were at the warehouse. A guy shot our friend upstairs from behind. We got to him just as he was falling."

  "And what about one of Der Führer's goons shooting someone in the back surprises you, Mika? That whole bunch are vermin. Just like their boss, Herr Owen. I'd be surprised if one of them didn't shoot him in the back." Cyrus said.

  "We'd only just gotten there when it happened. So we never had time to get the scoop on their doings. Maybe we don't need to now."

  "Less to worry about then. I don't wish that on anyone but if it's got to be, couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of guys."

  "Yep. Nice crowd our new Governor runs with. Promising start to the New World Order."

  "Owen is the New World Order. Goons and dictators. This country wasn't built on goons and dictators. Things getting worse these last sixty odd years. Meaner. Fueled by a cunning media. Blood is what they're about. Blood and money," Rusty said sourly.

  "If it bleeds, it reads," Mika joined in. "And if it reads, well that's coin."

  "Don't forget power. The big three," Nate joined in.

  "This isn't what America is all about. But remember, them army boys may be driving those tanks but they're still Americans. They're people just like us. They are us. They learn what's really happening, they'll be the first to say no. I gotta believe that," James said.

  "Believe what you like, ain't gonna change nothing," Cyrus snapped. "Especially now with Martial Law and everything. Our boys or not, they'll open up on any one of us they see out for an after hours stroll. They want us where they can see us. Take our guns and then starve us into submission. This whole bloody mess has just taken a turn for the worse."

  Floyd looked towards the window and grunted.

  "I'm with Cyrus. Right or wrong, as near as I can tell, they got the manpower to say what's what. I don't want to spend the rest of my life gunning and running. Do better to just make our way south. That was always the plan. Move before the sky falls down around our ears. Settle into some banana republic south of the border."

  "Can't be worse than this," Nate said.

  "Sure it can," Cyrus replied. "It can always be worse. We're talking about people, after all."

  "We're people."

  "Didn't say we weren't, Nate. Still, I can't remember the last time I beheaded someone."

  "Said the Lord in his awesome judgment."

  "We don't have time for this," Floyd interrupted. "We're talking about bugging out. Like I said, I'd rather try my luck in a different time zone than wait for the hammer to fall here. If Owen doesn't clip our wings, the radiation sure as hell will."

  "So far the rads haven't done much. Maybe were too far away for it to be a concern. Could be we got lucky. Up around Burbank, sure. But it couldn't have been a big nuke or we'd be getting a higher reading on the Geiger by now," Aaron said.

  "Those Santa Ana's start blowing, we're going to be getting a reading, you better believe it. Central America. Or farther. Better than waiting for a breeze," Cyrus retorted.

  "If we're just talking about survival, some of those places always been bad. Gotta be a lot more survivors in this blasted land than just what's in LA. A lot of people saw what was coming. But yeah, we got to go at this another way. First thing is not to get captured. Second is to help others like ourselves. Owen is squeezing everyone. Denying people the basic necessities unless they do the Sieg Heil. As we already know, that's not going down too well with people already struggling and blaming the military for this mess."

  Floyd shook his head. "We're getting involved in something that may never end. We ought to just take a walk."

  "May end up doing just that. The answer my friend, as they say, may be drifting in the wind," Rusty said laconically. The others nodded their assent.

  They sat in silence for several more minutes sipping the rest of their coffee. Then they each pushed back their chairs and separated to his and her own individual tasks.

  Chapter Forty Six

  L ieutenant General Brooks was vigorously shaken awake. He was laying on a bunk made of collapsible wooden legs and canvas sitting two feet above the concrete floor in a small room without a window, toi
let or sink. He had been dreaming of home, his wife, the open view of the lake just outside their summer home, surrounded by birch and pine. He was sitting on the deck, his wife poised over him, leaning in to give him a kiss. Then the shaking began. His wife's image broke up and faded away along with the rest of the scene and he opened his eyes.

  He felt a keen disappointment when he saw not Milly, but the scraggily, unshaven face of his friend Deputy Commander McCann bending over him instead. Like himself, Brooks was dressed in a bright orange prison jump suit, their uniforms being stripped from them before being thrust into the room.

  Sleepily Brooks turned his head to the side and said, "Don't kiss me!"

  McCann leaned back. "Woah, don't get your hopes up, Brooks. We may be friends but that's as far as it goes."

  "You sure know how to kill a moment, Joe," Brooks said through bleary eyes. "My wife was just about to…"

  "Don't need the gory details, Will," he said, holding up his hand. "I have something to tell you. Something I think I just figured out."

  "They don't call you Eagle Eyes for nothing." Brooks propped himself up on an elbow and looked around the room. "It's coming back to me now. Shit, Lowry. I wake up from Milly and get Lowry. That was a dream. This is a nightmare."

  "It's not going to get any better when I tell you what's been coalescing in my skinny brain overnight.

  "I hope you've been thinking about a way to get us to a bathroom. My bladder is about to explode."

  "Sorry, can't help you there. I used the round file by the desk. Reseal the plastic bag when you're done. This is an awfully small room."

  Brooks stood up and stumbled towards the trash receptacle. He pulled open the plastic bag and then reared back, grimacing.

  "Good God, McCann, what did you..."

  "Just be glad there was a can at all. Could have been a paper bag instead."

  "So, what's going on?" Brooks asked standing over the can. "And how about turning around, eh? Ain't your mother ever told you it's impolite to stare?"

  "Like I said, keep wishing Brooks."

  "What's up?"

  "I was thinking about the video of the missiles coming from Russia and China. You might want to sit down for this."

  Retying the bag, Brooks walked around the desk, dropping into the chair.

  "Give."

  "When did they hit? Between two and three minutes of each other on the afternoon in question."

  "That's what Stratcom says, at least. And..."

  "So that's a three minute spread."

  "ok. What does it mean?"

  "Well, I watched the video again in my quarters yesterday."

  "I'm not following you, Joe."

  "It's just that the missiles came from sources throughout Russia and China."

  McCann walked over to the desk and pulled out a pen and empty sheet of paper. On it he drew a rough map of the world. Then he twisted the map around for Brooks to see.

  "Stratcom picked up simultaneous launches from here and here, seven others from here and seventeen more from here in Russia. Seventy-six from them. The other twenty-eight came from China, nineteen from here and nine more from here. The Ukraine was the source of the last one, obviously under Russian direction."

  McCann straightened and looked at Brooks. He looked hard at the map and then shrugging, looked helplessly at McCann.

  "Look at the map again, Will. Those are locations from all over Russia and China. Look how far away they are from one another. As you can see, for instance, this particular missile launched from Moscow targeted Los Angeles while this one from Murmansk targeted New York."

  "You're making me feel stupid, Joe. What's your point?"

  "Only this. Moscow and Murmansk vary in distance from their targets by more than fifteen hundred miles. In other words, Murmansk is more than fifteen hundred miles closer to its target than Moscow is to its target."

  McCann just stared at Brooks.

  "How did they let you into the academy anyway," McCann groaned. "The missiles all struck between 0200 hours and three minutes, eighteen seconds after, a three minute, eighteen second lag between impacts. For example, the missile from Murmansk struck New York City at two P.M. while the one from Moscow hit Los Angeles two minutes, eight seconds later. Yet there's more than fifteen hundred miles difference in travel distance from their launch sites to their respective targets.

  "A missile traveling at roughly four miles a second from Moscow to Los Angeles should arrive in twenty six minutes whereas a missile launched from Murmansk traveling the same speed and taking nearly the same route over the pole would take nineteen and a half minutes to reach New York. That's a difference of five and a half minutes. Stratcom says all missiles were launched simultaneously at 0136 hours when the order must have dropped. So we know, given the launch time, actual speed and individual trajectories what their ETA's should have been. The one that struck Dallas should have hit at 0155 hours while the one that targeted Los Angeles should have struck at exactly at 0202 hours. But they all hit between 0200 and 0203 hours."

  "But how can that be, Joe? Those numbers don't make any kind of sense. We know when the missiles hit, so they couldn't have launched simultaneously. Or the launch sites could have been wrong. There must have been a miscalculation somewhere."

  "Are you saying Stratcom got it wrong?"

  "Then how, you old bastard?"

  "That's the question." McCann looked away. "I just don't know."

  Chapter Forty Seven

  T he sky near the western horizon cast a hot golden glow over the road stretching away from Hershel and Rabbit to the sea. From a distance, they were the only movement to be seen anywhere in the wide Los Angeles basin, a vast swath of shattered skyscrapers, tipped overpasses, burnt-out vehicles and buckled streets as far as they could see.

  The tall silhouetted buildings ahead, their tops blasted off, leaving only curled rebar and steel H-beams, reminded Hershel, in the dying light of unruly hair of a sleepy insomniac. One great edifice had fallen over, leaning against another as though secretly confiding with a friend about the day's events. The ocean reflected the sky above it like a sheet of white-hot steel. Beyond that, darkness was closing in, turning to indigo shot through with reds and greens above them and yellow in the distance.

  The city was silent, silent and still. Night was coming. They needed to find a place to sleep. Hershel looked down at Rabbit. She was holding his hand, taking large steps, trying to match the girth of his own. For his part, he had forced himself to take half steps so that she could keep up with him with some semblance of pride. She looked up then, grinning at Hershel and immediately her steps grew even wider and slower. He smiled back, groaning inside.

  He wondered what was going through her head. The wide avenue down which they walked was, like the rest, filled with the leavings of the blasted metropolis through which they wound. Empty eyes peered at them from every building they passed, black and quiet where glass had been only days before. Bodies announced their putrid presence long before they saw them lying in heaps along the gutters and building entrances. Through it all, Rabbit marched, frequently looking up at her gentle giant with quiet acceptance. For the first time in her short memory, amidst an apocalypse that had claimed most of the other life around her, she felt safe.

  Hershel estimated the ocean still lay some six or more miles away. He had hoped to find a path through the ruins that would be easier for Rabbit to maneuver through but after walking in a criss cross pattern through Santa Monica, he realized the easiest path for her to follow was simply straight down.

  Why Rabbit had chosen this direction, he didn't know. Perhaps she had been to the ocean in the past and was just recalling happy memories running along warm sands and crashing waves. His better judgment told him they were wasting time and should instead be making for the east, the opposite direction, where he was sure more survivors would be found. Perhaps communities of survivors at one of which he could leave Rabbit. Then the road again. Georgia. Home. But the sea was
calling her. What harm could come of the short detour? They had all the time in the world.

  Rabbit, tired of walking and hungry as well, began to drag her feet. She tugged on Hershel's hand, a motion he hardly felt, so slight was the girl, so big the man. He stopped and looked down. She looked up at him doe eyed and then out at the vista before them.

  "Let's pick you up, bunny," he said quietly, scooping her in his arms. He sat her again on his shoulders and then fished in his pocket for a chunk of jerky. She took it wearily but didn't eat. Instead she rested her head on Hershel's. She sat for some time like that, looking about tiredly, while he walked. Soon he heard her regular breathing and knew that she was asleep. Still, she held the jerky in one hand.

  Hershel scanned the horizon for nothing in particular and continued towards the west. The street had broadened further but nevertheless was still choked by vehicles. He approached a motorcycle, still standing, it's front wheel enveloped by the bumper of the car in front of him when the driver had slammed on her brakes without warning. The man on the bike had become just a cut out human stain burned onto the chassis, his helmet alone of all that he had worn still representing something roughly three-dimensional.

  Hershel kept Rabbit from sliding from his shoulders with his left arm twisted uncomfortably behind him while he ate a wedge of jerky with his right. His pack was loaded with ten pounds, plus or minus, of the stuff along with water and the things he had found in the sporting goods store. On top of that sat Rabbit. Over his left shoulder the 12 gauge hung, barrel down.

  Occasionally Rabbit squirmed or moaned in her sleep. He patted her back gently when she did and she would settle back into a quiet slumber. He walked faster now, feeling he could make up for lost mileage when Rabbit had insisted on walking. He would take her to the ocean as she had wanted. Let her absorb the sea, remember it; then he would find someone he could leave her with and begin the long trek to the east.