The Fall of Polite

by Sam Kench

  ‘Don’t come any closer!’ Charli shouted in return from the darkness. She found the silhouette who spoke at the end of her iron sights. Lucas and Maisey raised their guns and stood to each of Charli’s shoulders, making a staggered line across the staircase.

  The other silhouette spoke, ‘How’d you get in here?!’

  ‘Look, we’re not here to hurt you!’

  One of the silhouettes took a step down towards them with his weapon at the ready.

  ‘Stop where you are! We have guns.’ Maisey clicked her flashlight back on and shined it against the side of her gun so the silhouettes could see she wasn't bluffing.

  The men saw three people in the light where they had previously suspected just one. They both shifted uncomfortably and swallowed dryly.

  Charli pointed the light in their direction. Two scruffy looking men in dirty jackets slick with grime squinted their eyes in the small LED beam of the flashlight. ‘We’re not here to hurt you but we will if you make us.’ Charli's voice was strong, confident, and calm.

  The scruffy men looked at each other and then back into the flashlight beam at the unidentified intruders. ‘We don’t have any food if that’s what you’re after.’

  The other man picked up where the first left off, ‘And we don’t have any guns or bullets or nothin’.’

  ‘We’re not looking to take anything from you.’ Charli said, in as calming a voice as she could muster.

  The men looked at each other again. Their weapons lowered slightly.

  ‘Can we come up out of this stairwell?’

  ‘It doesn’t seem like we have much of choice.’ The closer of the two silhouettes said as he backed up towards the door.

  Maisey spoke up. ‘You do have a choice. We aren’t the bad guys… and it seems like you aren’t either.’

  The men allowed them up and out of the stairwell. Sunlight mingled with firelight on the fourth floor of the parking garage. Ragged men and women slept in sleeping bags and on blankets on the hard floor. The few vehicles present had their seats reclined and repurposed as beds. Most of the vehicles had been driven or pushed down to lower levels and repurposed as barricades. Fires roared in steel drums near the edge of the garage with several people around them warming their hands against the flames. Snowflakes drifted gently in through the side of the garage and melted in the fire. There looked to be around three or four dozen men and women scattered throughout the encampment.

  ‘My name’s Robert,’ one of the former silhouettes said to Charli. The other grubby man took his leave and joined a woman sitting against the wall. She handed him a half-eaten loaf of stale bread and he took a gracious bite. She kissed his grimy cheek.

  Charli holstered her gun and shook Robert’s hand, clad in a dirty cotton glove with the stitched fingers missing. ‘I’m Charli. This is Lucas and Maisey.’

  ‘This is our camp, I guess, if you want to call it that. That’s what some of the others do.’

  ‘Are you in charge, Robert?’

  ‘No. No one’s really in charge. We just sorta… co-habitate, I guess you’d call it. You’re all welcome to stay if you’re looking for someplace. You seem like decent people.’

  ‘No, that’s all right, we have a place already.

  Lucas whispered to Maisey, ‘Why don’t you go see if the kid is here?’

  Maisey nodded and stepped away from the group. She walked further into the fourth floor and had a look around. She thought everyone there looked homeless, and then realized they were, and so was she and most other people too. She walked past sleeping bags and blankets containing old men with patchy white beards; they looked ill. She passed a large striped column and laid eyes on several more men and women curled up on the floor without even blankets to soften their existence. They wore jeans and puffy coats and they shivered in the cold. One of them let out a phlegmy cough and spit onto the floor. The phlegm would freeze solid soon enough.

  CHARLI POINTED to the can fires at the edge of the garage, ‘Smoke’s giving away your position. You might want to be more careful with those cans.’

  ‘I know it’s not the safest, but we’ve already lost two of the oldest to the cold. Freezing and starving is a rough combination. We can’t do much about the starving but the freezing we can help somewhat.’

  ‘I understand.’ Charli took a head count of the room. There were far more than she thought could be cared for in the gym, but she couldn't just leave them there. ‘Listen, we have a safer place. We were government run. Still are, I suppose, though we’ve lost touch with anyone who matters or mattered. We have food and protection, and it’s not warm exactly, but it’s a whole lot less cold than here. We're maintaining a livable temperature. You’re welcome to bring your people. We even have a couple doctors who can look at your sick ones.’

  Robert smiled for the first time a good long while. His face warmed as his mouth creased the opposite direction it had grown used to. ‘That’s so-… That’s very nice of you. Thank you. How far is it?’

  ‘A little over two miles, I think.’ Charli turned to Lucas for confirmation.

  ‘Maybe two and a third,’ he said.

  Robert looked over his shoulder and bit the inside of his cheek. ‘We’ve got a few who wouldn’t survive the trip. And a couple too stubborn to try I’d reckon.’

  MAISEY SAW NO SIGN of the addict mother or her poor son. What she did find was a 60-year-old man with a rubber tube tied around his arm, a needle in his vein, and a speedball running through it. ‘Excuse me,’ she said as she knelt down in front of the man. He sat on the floor beside a pile of trash, his back against the outer wall of the garage.

  Snow drifted silently in from above him and settled on his patchy hair. He spoke in a squeaky-hoarse voice, ‘Who’s that?’ He looked up at Maisey and tried to recognize her.

  ‘My name’s Maisey. I want to know-’

  ‘Do I know you, Maisey?’

  ‘No, uh, I’m new here.’

  He let out a high pitched laugh, ‘Oh, were you the one causing all that commotion by the stairs?’ He let out another laugh and slapped his knee, the needle wiggling wildly in his arm. ‘I thought we were all dying, and I’ll be damned if I’m dying clear-headed.’

  ‘So that’s actually what I wanted to ask you.’ Maisey said, attempting to approach her question diplomatically. ‘Where have you been getting your drugs?’

  ‘Oh, well it used to be a lot easier, I’ll tell you that for nothin’.’ He made an attempt to stand that ended with him slumping lower to the floor and looking far less comfortable. He propped himself back up against the wall. ‘You know, I been sleepin’ in this parking garage way longer than any of these other folks. Used to get in trouble for lighting a fire to keep warm. Back before everyone was robbin’ each other and the monsters were killin’ everyone’

  ‘Monsters?’

  ‘Yeah those monsters that made the world end. The big tall ones with the extra legs. You know.’

  A man, who Maisey hadn't spotted, sat up from underneath a newspaper-blanket, and gave her a shock. The surprise man said, ‘I told you there ain’t no monsters out there, Joe. How many times I gotta tell you?’ He slurred his words more than slightly.

  ‘There are too monsters! Why else would the whole damn world be dead?’

  ‘There ain’t no fuckin’ monsters, Joe. It was them Ko-reans that fucked everything. Them that dropped that nuclear-’

  ‘No it wasn’t! I heard about the monsters on Robert’s radio. They came up outta the ground. That Jones fella predicted it and no one listened to him before it was too late.’

  ‘That Jones fella’s a real phooey slinger. A total gobbledygook hocker.’

  ‘Uh, excuse me!’ Maisey sought to refocus the men, ‘Where do you go for your drugs these days?’

  ‘These days have been a might dry for old Joe. Running on about empty. Trying to make it last. The fella I been buyin’ from most recent is still out there hockin’ if you’re lookin’ to get yourself good and high. He ain’
t takin’ money no more though. Only trades of stuff. And I ain’t got shit worth shit except these Andrew Jacksons.’ Old Joe held up a fat wad of twenty-dollar-bills that he had broken out of a nearby ATM.

  The other gentleman pointed to Maisey, ‘Might sell to you though. Probably would sell to you for some kinda sex-something.’

  ‘Where’s this guy at?’ Maisey asked.

  ‘Three blocks that-a-way,’ The newspaper covered man pointed to the east. ‘Then one block up. In the red building. Go down the stairs, not up them.’

  ‘Thanks. There anyone else who’s selling?’

  ‘Nah.’ The newspaper clad man said, shaking his head.

  Old Joe slapped him in the chest lightly with the back of a limp hand, ‘Well wait just a second, there. There is one other guy I know of, but I heard he cuts his stuff with strychnine, and I ain’t about to start being about that shit just ‘cause the world ended.’

  ‘And where can I find him?’ Maisey asked.

  11. A DEPOT OF DEAD CHILDREN

  THE FIVE-PERSON-POSSE made their way along the frozen highway on foot. Probey led the way with his rifle pointed at the ground. Georgie was at the back of the single file gang shuffling down the center of the road.

  ‘Are we heading anywhere in particular, Probey?’ Peter asked.

  ‘I believe we are, but I don’t know where exactly.’ Probey looked over his surroundings, ‘God will guide us in our time of need.’ Probey shivered in the afternoon cold but refused to cover his police uniform with an overcoat.

  Eamon’s internal inferno was growing. It had been some time since he killed anyone. Their foot journey was giving him time to think about his dead loved ones, and the pain was unbearable. Ending life was the best temporary cure he had found for his broken heart; an outlet for his personal brand of sad anger.

  The severely diminished posse walked for several more miles, out of town and down an empty road, forest on either side. Probey lifted his yellow glasses and squinted at a tiny structure off in the distance. He cocked his head and turned back toward the group. ‘Lance… You think you could drive a bus?’

  ‘Yeah. I could drive anything.’

  Peter interjected, ‘Not a helicopter though, right?’

  ‘Okay fine, not a helicopter.’

  ‘No one drives a helicopter.’ Probey said, continuing the journey forward, ‘You pilot a helicopter.’

  20 MINUTES LATER, the posse arrived at a fenced-in lot. The chain-link reached high and was topped with barbed wire. A large sliding gate blocked their entry. Beyond the fencing was the region’s supply of public transportation. Six municipal buses appearing to be in good shape were parked in two rows with a small building at the back of the lot.

  Probey pulled ineffectively at the gate. ‘You think we can cut through this chain-link?’ Probey asked the group.

  Georgie walked around the side of the lot, running his hand along the fence and tugging on it intermittently. He soon came upon a loose spot that had a lot of give for just a little pull. He motioned with his head for the others to follow. Georgie and Eamon grabbed onto the fence and lifted the bottom up and out of the snow. They held the bottom, curled up, as the others crawled underneath. Eamon held the fence for Georgie, then they switched duties.

  Lance ran up to the closest bus and forced the doors open. The interior was clean, the seats no more damaged than the average public transport.

  Probey entered the bus and did a seat count. He imagined his gang growing large enough to fill the entire bus, then two buses, then three. He wished to rule what was left. He figured if he really jammed everyone in, he could fit around 60 men in the bus. His imagination ran wild. He saw himself in a mobile base of operations, sipping on the priciest brown liquor his men could dig up, giving orders to his lieutenants who would pass them on to their own subordinates. There would be law, and he would be the lawmaker.

  Lance hopped out of the bus and looked over the tires: not slashed, not flat. He popped the hood and began his inspection of the engine. ‘Not quite what I’m used to, but it all looks good. I could figure out repairs if need be. It would just take me a while longer. I’ll need more tools though.’

  Probey stepped slowly down the steps of the bus and to the ground as his mind came back into present focus, leaving his imaginings for later. Gravel adjusted through the snow under his feet. ‘Let’s see if the keys are inside.’

  The posse approached the small windowless building. It was built of a cinder-block construction and had a thick metal door painted green a decade earlier. Rust had creeped across over the intervening years. Georgie switched from his long-gun to his side-arm.

  Probey readied his rifle and motioned for Peter to open the door. He removed his sunglasses and hung them off his collar, then laid his back against the cinder block wall.

  Peter slowly gripped the door handle and twisted it. He pushed forward but the door didn’t move. ‘Something’s blocking it.’

  Eamon marched forward.

  ‘It’s not locked-’ Peter began to say, before Eamon grabbed him and shoved him out of the way.

  Eamon rammed his shoulder against the door. It opened a quarter inch. He rammed again. A filing cabinet on the other side screeched along the floor a few inches. Eamon took a step back and gave a final shove that pushed the door the rest of the way in.

  The door swung open and slammed against the inside wall, the filing cabinet having slid diagonally in front of the doorway. A lit camping lantern sat on a desk across from the door. Eamon saw movement in the dim glow. He racked his shotgun and pointed it inside. His breathing quickened as he tightened his grip on the pump-action boomstick.

  The room was still, then all of a sudden it wasn’t. Eamon saw ginger hair poking up over the desk in the light of the lantern. ‘Hey!’ He shouted in his deep woodsman voice. More movement: a head popped up over the desk following the hair. Eamon fired… and blew apart the head of an 8-year-old boy.

  EAMON DIDN’T RE-RACK HIS SHOTGUN, he didn’t blink and he didn’t breathe. He fell against the door frame and dropped his gun to the ground.

  ‘Eamon, are you all right?’ Probey called from behind him. Eamon’s massive, slumped frame blocked any view inside.

  Eamon’s eyes were wide and growing more wet by the second as he watched three small children clamber into the lantern light and surround their dead brother. The camping lantern had also been blown to pieces and a fire was burning on the document covered desktop. The child’s now unrecognizable face was burned into Eamon’s mind along with his action’s aftermath. He had only seen the child’s face for a fraction of a second, but he knew every detail of it by heart; the slope of the boy’s nose, the freckles on his pale cheeks, the wet irises.... His trigger finger reacted faster than his eyes could process the sight. Eamon turned away from the children and tried to run toward the bus, but tripped and fell to his chest, weeping.

  ‘What the hell happened?’ Peter asked the back of Eamon’s sobbing head.

  Probey entered the building with his rifle raised, Georgie following closely behind. ‘Oh, I see.’ Probey said. Georgie picked up Eamon’s shotgun. The two of them removed the rest of the children from the world.

  Eamon got up on his hands and knees, and vomited into the snow. He vomited again as thoughts of his own daughter’s death raced through his mind, being chased by thoughts of his own murder of someone who had seen only half the life his daughter had. He dry heaved and clutched at his throat with a snow covered hand.

  Probey climbed over the filing cabinet and began tearing apart the office. Georgie lifted each drawer of the fallen filing cabinet straight up and perused their contents.

  At the back of the office was a cork board with keys hanging off of numbered pegs for each of the buses. Probey took all of them and a plastic crate of mechanic’s tools, and exited the office, stepping over the dead children who had been waiting for their parents to return.

  ‘First time killin’ a kid, huh Eamon?’ Probey said as he handed a
ll of the keys to Lance. ‘You’ll get used to it.’

  Eamon whipped his head toward Probey, puke in his beard and hatred on his tongue, ‘No.’

  The posse climbed onto the bus and drove off with plans to return for the other buses when their gang had significantly grown.

  THREE HOURS LATER, the parents returned with food for six. They found their children... and promptly ended their own lives.

  12. A TRICK PULLED TWICE, A TRIGGER PULLED ONCE

  MARIA COMPLETED the first three hours of her daily eight-hour workout. She was getting stronger and her determination had not diminished. With the constant exercise and need to carefully ration food, she had reached 0% body fat and was building an enviable muscle mass for her size. She didn't fool herself though, she knew a man with a naturally larger build would still be able to overpower her five foot six frame with ease if she wasn't careful. She figured a higher protein intake would speed up her muscle building process, but had no way to supply that. Her endurance was the best it had ever been by a significant margin.

  She didn’t venture far from the cottage. By running laps through the adjoining woods, she hazarded to guess that she could cover a couple of miles without slowing much or becoming exhausted, even in the deep snow. She was through being a victim. She was through being in danger. She was ready to be a force of danger against anyone who stood adverse to her.

  She went upstairs to cool off by the attic window before lunch as had become routine for her. The attic window was the only one she hadn’t boarded up because it was unreachable from the outside. The doors, she kept barricaded until she went outside to run, gather snow (to melt for water), or to forage for firewood. She wiped away sweat with a checkered towel from the kitchen. She wore just sweatpants and a t-shirt for her indoor workouts. Afterwards, the cold air actually felt nice.

  She had developed a habit of never taking off her boots. They took too long to put on and lace up. She wouldn’t be ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice if she was caught barefoot. Some less-than-quiet nights, she even wore them into bed.