Partholon

by D Krauss

  Some of it was due to Raiders’ attrition or recruitment. But, that was just battlefield percentage; most left because truth dawned – nothing was going to change, might as well go home. That upset the CDC initially because they thought a ready supply of test victims in the tents, a real big control group, would surely generate a cure. But it didn’t, at least not so far, and probably wouldn’t. That, more than anything, drove people off. Once a place drains of hope, look for it elsewhere.

  Some of the first Families formed in the tents, pretty much the same way they formed in the Zone, segments drifting together. Some of them were still here, but most left as a group. John hadn’t run across any of them. Odd. Must have drifted out to the country places, somewhere around Manassas or Fredericksburg, and set up shop in some old farmhouse with plenty of land. Probably formed communes. Or, maybe they all got sick of each other and divorced. Who knew?

  The people still here were diehards, just sitting there stubborn, waiting for the initial promises to be fulfilled, the glaring exception being the hardy percent running the Raiders’ black market. Couldn’t blame any of them. They got three squares a day, the same stuff the army’s eating, and medical care and movies and the latest shows. The hardy percent had the added bonus of getting filthy rich doing business with ZeeGees, virtually no overheads, occasionally stirring things up with a firefight or two.

  But, they’re all pathetic. Losers. Criminals. The price of staying was submission to CDC trials and a lot of that was draconian and a lot of them just died. What normal person would endure that? Bill said most of them had become so depressed they wouldn’t even watch movies anymore. Bill told them to leave, go get another life, but they wouldn’t listen and then the CDC got mad and threatened him with dismissal. Or worse. Like their weekly strapping of Bill to a gurney and removing half his blood supply wasn’t bad enough. But they could, indeed, do worse.

  John moseyed over to Bill’s booth, supposed to be sealed but Bill ignored the protocols, leaving it wide open. Iconoclasm or death wish, John wasn’t sure, but the rule flouting began in earnest after John, responding finally to Bill’s continuous pleas, went to Bill’s house in Herndon (a harrowing trip involving no less than five gun battles), found and buried his wife.

  Bill had wanted to go himself. He stood outside the Gate for weeks screaming to be let in, worse than all the other Lizards. He demanded it, said he knew his wife was alive. The CDC commander became curious – what would happen to an Outsider mixing with Gaters? So they made him a deal; work at the Gate, we’ll see about your wife.

  They never did, of course. Bill tried to go out there several times, but was stopped, locked up. John had been his only hope and Bill was a good guy and no one should be this close and not have any answers. That was back in the first days, when John had noble purposes still about him. So John went.

  After that, Bill started walking around the camp without a yellow suit, not even a respirator, checking on people, slapping backs, hugging, consoling, sleeping with a random woman or two. Yeah, definitely a death wish. But, he didn’t get sick.

  Odd. The CDC thought it was odd, too, and relented and said he could go home if he wanted, but they hadn’t suddenly become altruistic. They wanted to see what would happen if he got an unadulterated dose. Bill didn’t go. No need; John had already taken care of it and, while Bill might have a death wish, he wasn’t crazy. Good thing, because Bill was good for the Gate. He knew what he was doing.

  “How’s business?” Bill asked, almost cheerily.

  “Booming,” John replied and Bill almost laughed.

  “When you going to retire?”

  “And do what?”

  “You could come out here.”

  “And do what?”

  Bill actually laughed then and flapped a hand at a chair and offered John a cigar, which he greedily accepted because it was a real Cuban. Ever since they took the island back, Cubans had been fairly available on the Outside, usually as gifts to important people. Bill had somehow convinced CDC bigwigs that he was important, so they occasionally passed on a box or two.

  John put it in his pocket for later and asked about satellite internet. Bill puffed and frowned and then declaimed in technical jargon about azimuths and signal ranges and connectability until John smiled and said, “Okay, I surrender.”

  He shrugged an apology, “Yeah, I know, I talk to myself too much. But, really, if you want to give it a whirl I can write it all up for your next visit.”

  “Man,” John raised appreciative eyebrows, “that would be fantastic. Can I use my existing Dish system? Without changing the contract, I mean. Too expensive.”

  “Not a problem. I’ll give you the directions on what to do and some IP addresses for free satellite I know about. You’ll have to move them around a lot because someone will get wise, but if you randomize and access sub or hyper frequencies, you’ll do okay.”

  “That sounds great, Bill, whatever you just said, it really does, but I’m not sure I’ve got the expertise.”

  He regarded John coolly, “You got here alive, didn’cha?”

  John nodded. Okay.

  One deal done. John asked if he needed anything from the Zone. Bill wanted any old VHS tapes or DVDs. There were, of course, plenty, Blockbuster not doing the business it used to, yuk yuk, and John said he would bring back a smorgasbord.

  “Good,” Bill blew a cloud into the chamber, “light stuff, you know, musicals, ’50s, Doris Day, Rock Hudson silliness. But nothing dark, not Rebel Without a Cause, you know?” John agreed and did not ask if these were for Movie Night or just for Bill, because either answer would have been saddening.

  “What’s it like?” Bill asked after a pause.

  John shook his head, “It’s getting worse. Much worse. I’m finding butcheries all the time now and you can hear a lot more shooting going on. People seem to have disappeared, I mean, the decent people. I don’t know if they’re hiding or run off or dead, but all I’m seeing these days are the bad ones.”

  “Hmm,” Bill gestured towards the tents, “it’s getting like that here, too. People are stealing from each other and factions have formed and there’s fights between them. That’s over and above the black-market gangs, mind you. ZeeGees had to come in here a couple of times and break up some crowds. Ugly, real ugly. They leave me alone, I guess because they know the place will shut down otherwise, but they’re turning on each other.”

  “Umm,” John was sympathetic, “that’s what happens. No reason to hope.” John paused. “Do they?”

  Bill looked at John, intense and probing, “No. CeeDees still do a lot of needle work, like always, but they’re not changing their stories anymore, it’s all ‘wait and see’ now. They don’t even bother to lie. People know.”

  “Yeah.” People did know. John had clung to the lies too, even the most transparent, a drowning man to a passing spar, because hope was ephemeral, but powerful. John could, like anyone, make hope out of anything. But he had to be given something first.

  Bill shook his head and muttered something.

  “What?” John didn’t quite catch it, “Did you say, ‘go on’?”

  “Partholon. I said, ‘Partholon,’” Bill replied rather absently and clenched the cigar fiercely in his teeth.

  John’s blank look told him they didn’t share the reference. Bill manhandled the cigar down to his side, “It’s an old Irish legend.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Partholon was the first human settler of Ireland. He came from the Mystic Western Islands, the Land of the Dead, with his family. He built the lakes and rivers and farmlands, fought the Fomorians, who were some kind of demon race. His wife committed the first act of adultery in Ireland, establishing one helluva precedent, don’cha think?”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Bill shrugged, looking out the door, “Partholon and his entire family died of the plague. Except for his son or nephew, I forget which, who took on the form of all kinds of different animals and things until he wa
s reborn as a baby, thousands of years later, with all the knowledge of everything that had happened before.”

  John blinked at him, “Why did you raise that?”

  Bill pursed his lips and looked genuinely puzzled, “I don’t know. It just popped into my head. I guess because we were talking about the CeeDees and I was thinking ‘plague’ and, well, there it was, Partholon.” He took a deep, deep draw. “That’s all.”

  “Hmm,” John grunted. “That’s how we’re going to end up, isn’t it?”

  Bill didn’t respond. So they sat there, saying nothing, looking off at angles. Things were what they were. No need to console or explain, the mere act of breathing was its own consolation. Bill finished the Cohiba and offered another cigar but John refused, never having been a big smoker. Just living was risky enough. John gave him a Unix manual he’d found, which pleased Bill to no end because it was some rare upgraded version, a real treasure. John left, went home.

  And now, here he was. And here she was, scattering in the wind. And he still had no clue why.

  But he knew one thing. He was going to get this bastard and his pals. He was going to duct tape them to the biggest tree on the Main Quad and then carve the Bill of Rights on their stomachs. He was going to hang their blood-drained carcasses from a telephone pole right on Ward Circle and coat them with honey and watch the bees build nests in their eyes and the birds eat their intestines. He’d invite MPD to watch while he did all this. No doubt, they’d approve.

  He watched her swirling in the breeze. I promise, I promise.

  13

  Wasn’t really much more to do. Further patrol would be anti-climactic; what, was he going to find the current president, whoever that was, staked out in a classroom? Screw it, time to end this. John watched the embers die and then crossed the street, walked up the long hill and stood in the arch, where the tunnel under Letts spilled out to the Quad.

  A couple of cars parked there still, one with its passenger door open and some clothes hanging out, brushing the asphalt. He’d never closed it. Stark, that open door, communicating volumes. The students would have considered it art.

  He always came here, before ending the day. Everyone needed a reminder of what they’re about. Not that there weren’t plenty of reminders scattered all the way between home and work. But, here, he was caretaker, and it was important to remember why.

  The ghosts. Lots of ghosts. John looked at the identical Anderson and Letts main entrances, set opposite each other, the leaf-strewn steps rising to glass double security doors fronting foyers and RAs on desk duty. “Show me your card, please,” and calls of “Hey, Jules!” and “Yo, where you goin’?”, “Anybody seen my backpack?”

  John was the only one who heard it now, although it was just as active and crazy and loud as it was back then. Just on a different level.

  They saw him, the ghosts. While they ran between buildings and had fights on the stoops and threw Frisbees, they glanced at him sideways. They frowned.

  “I’m sorry,” John said, as he’d said a million times already.

  The ghosts all stopped and stared at him. “We tried,” John said, “we had meetings.”

  Lots of meetings. The wave of deaths in Baltimore caused great concern and all the campus wheels gathered to see if the evacuation plan, that brand new, spiffy, well-written and strident document they’d put together after 9/11, applied to this situation. John was invited because, well, out of all the campus wheels, he was the only one with a military background, anti-terror at that and, well, although he really wasn’t a wheel, he was known and it would look good to the parents and the students if AU’s “resident expert” were present. Yeah. Some expert.

  John had put on his grave face and threw in a meaningless comment or two to make his boss proud. For a university, appearance was everything, and although John thought the Baltimore deaths were really nothing, a weird uptick in pneumonia or Flu in that crappy, dirty city, and he expressed proper concern. That assured a favorable impression, which assured future employment. If he looked like he knew what he was talking about, then the university looked like it was prepared.

  It wasn’t; no one was and no one knew that, least of all John, so they published their innocuous, crafted-by-committee statement in the campus paper and on the intranet, slipped flyers under doors. Everyone felt better and wasn’t that the point? John had felt smug, even though he, of all people, knew that perception trumped reality and that reality was always something grimmer.

  But it was a reality in Baltimore, not here. Placated students placated their parents and kept going to their internships at Capitol Hill and mixing with each other in Georgetown pick-up joints and even volunteering at some Baltimore fringe hospitals, instead of fleeing to their New Jersey or Connecticut homes, going completely around Baltimore as they did so.

  “Look at it this way,” John whispered to the ghosts, “by staying here, you didn’t spread it. Most of you didn’t, anyway. You might even have contained it a bit.”

  The ghosts’ frowns deepened.

  That meeting was what, on a Monday afternoon? Next Monday, 32 students and one faculty member died on campus. John spent that entire day directing ambulances and calling hospitals and fielding phone calls from hysterical parents and random others and trying to get someone in DC FEMA to agree that his campus deaths were far more important than their Anacostia ones, or the ones at UDC, even the ones at the Smithsonian. He failed, of course.

  He went home utterly exhausted and held Theresa, who was frightened, almost paralyzed, and who begged him not to go back but knew that was pointless. He was a warrior. Warriors fight. He left her crying in the living room the next morning and drove on an amazingly deserted Shirley Highway back to the campus where 375 students died in their rooms overnight.

  He could not get home that evening because 395 and the Chain Bridge and 495 and 95 were all jammed tight with the panicked.

  News helicopters flew above the chaos and live-fed hundreds of traffic accidents, hundreds of vehicles smashing through guardrails, whole sections of beltway engaged in riot, overturned police cars and fires and shootings.

  John called Theresa and they stayed on the phone together all night. He didn’t even try to get home until three days later, making it after a five-hour ride over main and side roads, and shoulders and sidewalks, stopping every five minutes to push wrecks and pull bodies out of his way.

  When he walked through the door, Theresa was in bed with the cough.

  “I paid,” he told the ghosts.

  During those three stranded days, John walked the campus. There was no looting then, not even a lot of panic, just a determined effort to get out. John stood in the Quad, pretty much where he stood now, and watched the survivors grimly pack their cars with computers and clothes and stereos. Someone had knocked down the bollards that kept cars out of the area and a couple of students directed traffic. Oddly, the others obeyed them.

  John just watched. No one asked him to help nor did he see the need to offer. Most of them already had the cough and a few were laid out in the back seats of friends’ cars, miserably hacking for air, all hoping to make their mutual hometowns and die together, he supposed.

  They all knew what was going on around the highways but it didn’t matter. It was better to make the effort, dying on the way, than wait here passively.

  A few girls were crying in corners or looking around helplessly for someone to make it all better, but the majority just went about their business, silently. The prospect of being hanged and its wonderful ability to focus the mind. John saw numerous acts of true courtesy and quiet heroism, someone giving up a space in a car to someone else who was obviously a goner, saying they would catch a ride later, then go back inside and never come out again.

  “You were heroes,” he said to the ghosts, “you acted better than your parents.”

  The ghosts turned from him.

  He held out a beseeching hand. “How do you explain? We didn’t expect it. No one expected
it. No one saw it coming.”

  All of them, the ghosts included, watched madmen turn airliners into missiles and drive innocents into the Towers, and it was senseless and unbelievable, and was never expected. Everyone watched other madmen drive another plane into the side of the Pentagon, stunned and shocked because, onboard, there was a little girl, maybe twelve years old, excited to go on a special trip with her teacher, a reward for doing so well in school.

  Her last ten minutes of life were pure horror. She had to watch madmen slit a flight attendant’s throat, and then yank the plane down in sickening deceleration at a building canting and looming in front. And she was terrified and screaming and it was torture for her. Pure torture for a child. That’s it. That’s what the madmen did. The image of a screaming, horrified little girl summed it all up.

  John missed the crash into the Pentagon by ten minutes. He was late that morning and irritable as he managed to catch a last-minute slug into the Pentagon hub and pick up a Yellow line from there to L’Enfant Plaza. He cleared the hub as the plane made its descent. When he got off the AU shuttle, one of the patrolmen told him what was going on and he rushed down to the lounge and watched the news reports for the next two hours. He watched the replays of the Tower attacks and watched in real time as they collapsed.

  But, that little girl, what she suffered, that was his image of the day.

  He’d known about those people, those murderers, those Muslim cowards so angry and self-righteous and jealous of a world that had proved, many times over, that their closed-minded religious zealotry could not advance nor feed nor edify their people but only terrify and repress and cow.

  Instead of harking back to their brilliant Andalusian forebears, who were the first lights of the Dark Ages, and concluding, through Andalusian rationality and logic, that maybe there was something wrong with a philosophy that left whole peoples undeveloped, backward and increasingly marginalized, and that after 700 years they had barely advanced past those same Dark Ages, while the secular Western world was reaching an unheard-of affluence with little input from Islam, they reached a different conclusion – hate.