Domino Falls

by Steven Barnes

  Crew Cut shrugged. “Welcome to Domino Falls.”

  But his eyes said We’ll see what happens now.

  Kendra, Piranha, and the others all gathered groggily in the hallway. Crew Cut opened a satchel, and their handguns gleamed inside. “These are the ones you came with. Your rifles and shotguns are tagged at the arsenal—patrols only. But we encourage everyone to carry their sidearms. An armed society is a polite society.”

  “Great,” Ursalina said, reaching for her Colt 9mm. She checked the clip, slid it back. That left only three handguns for six of them. Terry, Piranha, and Dean all grabbed Smith and Wessons.

  Crew Cut nodded toward Ursalina. “Army?”

  “Corporal, National Guard Hundred and Fourth. Vancouver. You?”

  “Captain. Coast Guard Air Station, San Francisco,” he said. “What happened up there?”

  “Freakstorm we couldn’t handle.”

  He nodded with sympathy. “Lot of that going around. Good to have a soldier.” He extended a hand.

  She slapped it. “This soldier’ll be glad to have a bunk.”

  The ranch house was at the edge of town, near a cluster of fenced-in homes and the two-lane road leading to a more densely built area barely visible through the mist about two miles down the hill, probably a main street. A closer neighbor housed a stack of chicken coops, and another land parcel was home to grazing cattle. Cows. Cheeseburgers, on the hoof.

  In the driveway, a surprise: Darius and Dean found their motorcycles waiting, still damp from an early-morning washing. Terry hadn’t realized how grimy the Kawasaki and Honda were until he saw the clean cherry-red metal sparkling. Terry was happy for them, but he wished the bus were there too.

  The Twins circled the bikes, whistling approval.

  “Looking good!” Darius said.

  “Who did this?” Dean sounded suspicious.

  “I did,” Jackie said, behind them, just turning the hose off. Terry had thought he’d picked up a vibe from Jackie toward the Twins, but now he was sure of it.

  In tight jeans and clinging sweatshirt, Jackie wasn’t a bad picture either. Kendra glanced at him while he was appreciating the redhead, so Terry turned his studied gaze to the bikes instead.

  Dean grinned. “Welcome wagon?”

  “Nice wheels deserve a nice bath,” Jackie said.

  “That’s awfully … nice,” Darius said. “So, what do you deserve?”

  Jackie winked. “Between the two of you, I’m sure you’ll think of something.” Behind Terry, Piranha sucked in his breath and whispered Dang.

  “Home sweet home,” Dean muttered, and grinned for the first time since Freak Day.

  Jackie took over to escort them into town in her huge white pickup, and they left the Gold Shirts behind. Terry wasn’t sorry to be free of them. Darius and Dean guided the truck with their bikes, happy with the stares they triggered.

  Downtown Domino Falls seemed to be about two dozen stores along a couple of blocks, and then a network of narrow roads leading off toward farmland and orchards. Three saddled horses tied to bicycle posts made the street look like a set from a Western. Except for that, Domino Falls might have been an ordinary town.

  Terry had barely noticed that Kendra was holding his hand again, as if their palms belonged together. That was just fine. The closer she stayed the better.

  “Look at these,” Kendra said, tugging him toward a closed storefront. A store crammed with what looked like junk—antiques, maybe—had three paintings displayed in the window. The largest, in the center, was so realistic that it looked like a photo: a snapshot of the exact spot where they were standing on the street. But while the buildings were sharply focused, hundreds of blurry, identical people crowded the street from end to end, their faces turned upward to look at a single red ribbon hovering above them like a long, curled snake.

  “Weird,” Terry said. He had never had much of a taste for art.

  Kendra didn’t answer, staring. After a moment, he moved her along to follow the others, who were already halfway down the block.

  An elegantly painted wooden sign designated a two-story brick colonial building in the middle of Main Street, the town hall. After a quick heads-up from Jackie’s walkie-talkie, they were met by a short, balding man in faded jeans and a checkered shirt. He spoke in an enthusiastic whine.

  “Heard we had a group of young people!” he said. “Welcome, welcome. This is Domino Falls—or, as some of us like to call it, Threadville. We’re so excited you made it. Been quite a while since we had seven in one day, much less in one group.”

  “Hope you have room,” Piranha said.

  The man laughed, but it changed tenor midway, more like a moan. “Oh, we’ve got room—a Travelodge and empty houses from folks who didn’t make it. Fewer than a third of the people here are original townies. I’m Van Peebles, pretty much acting mayor, except we really never had a full-time mayor, just a town council. But since things changed, we’re a little more formal around here …”

  Terry forgot Van Peebles’s rambling as he stared at the waking town. With sunlight, more people were streaming to the main street: most on foot, many riding bicycles, a couple of Gold Shirts on horseback. Some had vendor carts and baskets they were setting up in front of empty storefronts or inside shops that were otherwise mostly barren. The people were clean and warmly dressed, gazing at them with only mild curiosity.

  And there were dogs everywhere, about a dozen roaming without leashes. Hippy was having private sniffing exchanges with the town canines who ruled the streets. In a world where dogs could smell impending death, they were man’s best friend indeed.

  A few people smiled as they greeted one another. Terry overheard two stout men wondering if it would rain soon. A woman and a young girl were laughing over a shared secret in the woman’s palm. Even the stray dogs looked well-fed. Domino Falls was more than Terry had hoped for. What wouldn’t he give to stay in a place like this?

  “We can’t let everyone in,” the mayor said suddenly, stealing his thoughts. “That’s the bottom line. Trade here is healthy, so we’ll let you visit if you have reasonable barter, which means products or services our people want. Sometimes we can use good field hands.”

  “What crops?”

  “Good survival crops,” Van Peebles said. “Beans, peas, broccoli. Potatoes, cabbage, carrots, melons, peppers, sweet potatoes. High-yield, high-nutrition crops. Then we have specialty fields like craftsmen, physicians, nurses … that’s always good. If you want sanctuary, you need the ability to work the jobs we assign. Children are exempted, and their parents are given special consideration. We’ll treat the infirm as best we can before we send them on, but …” He paused, watching them, perhaps projecting his own discomfort. “We’re not monsters. We’re just trying to survive.”

  “You and the rest of the world,” Terry said.

  “What happens to the people waiting outside?” Kendra said, the same question simmering in Terry’s own mind.

  Van Peebles sighed. “We’ve got our hands full with our own. They can stay outside the fence a few days, but then we send them on. Like I said, we can’t take everyone.”

  Terry thought of the old man by the fire and his crutch. Where would he go?

  There was an awkward pause and Kendra leaped into it. “We’ll be perfect citizens. If we stay, you’ll never regret giving us a home.”

  “And if we decide to leave, we’ll leave as friends,” Terry said.

  They all looked at one another, to make sure they were in agreement.

  Van Peebles nodded but didn’t smile. “Any relatives who can vouch for you?” he said. “Helps you get past probation much quicker.”

  “No, sir,” Kendra said. “We just followed the radio.”

  “That’s too bad,” Van Peebles said. “Like most of the surviving townships, there are strong sanctuary rules for relations. If you petition to stay here …”

  Kendra suddenly squeezed Terry’s hand. Was it unconscious? He guessed she wanted to
know more about other townships like Devil’s Wake. But she kept silent.

  “We’re definitely petitioning,” Sonia said. “As of yesterday.”

  “Probation first. The tax for joining the community is half of what you brought, however much or little that might be. Wealth is of no interest to us. Sincerity is.”

  Terry felt the others staring holes into the back of his neck. They had fought hard for every scrap they owned, and now they had to give up half?

  “Sounds fair,” Terry said. “A trade’s a trade.”

  “While you’re on probation, hope you came to work,” Van Peebles said. “What we need most are people willing to go into the city to scavenge. I won’t lie: it’s our most dangerous job. We’ve always got openings.”

  Ugh. Going into San Francisco would be a hard way to make a living, but they would probably fly through probation if some of their party took on the toughest work. Terry expected Ursalina to volunteer, but she didn’t say a word.

  “Also pays well,” Van Peebles went on. “You keep half of what you find. Top choice in housing. Extra rations. Short rotations. We send you out two days max, and you’re back here three days for every day you spend outside.” He leaned toward Piranha, a conspiratorial glimmer in his eyes. “And scavs tend to be very popular with the ladies.”

  Piranha nodded. “Sold. I need to get to San Francisco. I’m out of contact lenses, so I’m a scavenger.”

  In the sunlight, Terry suddenly noticed how red Piranha’s eyes were. Just how blurry was his vision these days? Piranha looked like he needed the backup, and the loot wouldn’t be bad. Who knew what they might find? Besides hordes of freaks?

  “I’ve got your back out there,” Terry said, bumping his fist. “But what’s up with your eyes, man?”

  “Nothing some fresh contacts and saline solution won’t cure,” Piranha said, weary. “Don’t suppose you’ve got an optometrist here?”

  “Not yet,” Van Peebles said. “Contacts are scarce, so I doubt you’d find any you can use. But one of our vendors, McPherson, has a huge box of eyeglasses. You might not want to ask him where they came from, though.” He pointed toward a corner.

  Piranha nodded. “McPherson. Cool. I’ll check him out.”

  “But nothing here is free except dinner. Expect to trade for everything.”

  “As long as we still have our stuff on the bus, trade is no problem,” Terry said.

  “What other jobs are there?” Kendra said.

  The mayor explained that the radio station needed staff to keep up their goal to produce twenty-four-hour programming. “For some folks out there, we’re the only voice of civilization,” he said. “There’s lots of fencing to be done. Good shooters sail through probation. We’ve also got a growing day care that’s short of help. There’s lots of kids.”

  “I want the day care,” Ursalina said quietly.

  They all shared a surprised look.

  “You’re kidding,” Terry said.

  “I like kids,” Ursalina said, avoiding eye contact with them.

  “The radio thing sounds good,” Sonia said. “I always wanted to do that.”

  When Van Peebles gazed at Sonia, his eyes seemed to melt. “You’d be a lovely addition to the station, my dear.”

  “Yeah, I like radio too,” Dean said.

  Van Peebles gave Dean a skeptical look. “Maybe, but I rather saw you and your brother as fence crew types. Let’s all go take a look at the fence factory, shall we?” he said. “Whether or not you stay, I want you to see how our town has survived.”

  As he said it, he rested one hand on Kendra’s shoulder and the other on Sonia’s. A harmless enough gesture, maybe even paternal, but to an alert part of Terry’s hindbrain, the mayor almost seemed to be claiming the girls as his own.

  The mayor had said it himself: the town didn’t take in the infirm, the sick, the blind. In this terrible world, who would? If you couldn’t take care of yourself, there was no one to take care of you. The freaks had seen to that.

  The fence factory was a huge rectangular mass to Piranha, probably a solid block long at the edge of town. When he got close enough, he saw that it was sturdy white brick. An ashy silhouette on the wall suggested some kind of fire, but the rest looked reasonably well kept. All of the windows on the lower floor were barred with iron or wood, and some on the second floor. One corner was leaping distance from the rooftop of a warehouse across the street. That was all Piranha could see. Piranha fought not to blink too much, not to rub his eyes. Rubbing made the pain worse.

  This was beyond bad, worse even than the endless wondering about his family, knowing he probably would never see them again, each day feeling more and more certain that even if they were alive, he had no way to find them.

  Day by day, he was going blind.

  He had been in seventh grade when an eye doctor first used the term extremely myopic, like it was athlete’s foot, explaining that he needed to protect his eyes and would wear corrective lenses his whole life. His mother had told him not to worry, that in modern society people with bad eyes lived just like everyone else, but Piranha had stayed awake that night imagining utter darkness. Years later, his stepfather had taken him to a Lasik clinic, but he’d been told his eyes were too far gone for laser surgery.

  With the comfort of contact lenses—one of them in each eye at all times—Piranha had avoided really knowing how little he could see. He’d lived in a bubble of denial.

  No more. Piranha’s eyes were an agony of constant stinging, and his vision was so foggy that he’d given up on seeing faces since right after the Siskiyous. It was as if his eyes had said, We got you past the pirates, bro; you’re on your own from here.

  Piranha recognized large objects and knew his friends from their height and voices, enough to get by on the bus, but he’d been terrified he would have to take an eye test at quarantine. He’d rifled through the box of eyeglasses the Irish vendor had on his table in town. None were close to his prescription.

  He was down to his last pair of lenses now. He’d made the mistake of trying to rinse one with precious drops from a bottle of purified water a few days ago, and he’d been lucky to get the lens back in. It hurt so much, constant slow grit in his eye, he’d nearly screamed. Had he torn it minutely? He still didn’t know, but he kept it in.

  Light hurt. Blinking hurt. Closing his eyes hurt. Opening his eyes hurt. He was probably giving himself an eye infection, but what could he do? He couldn’t be blind now. He remembered the cloudy eyes of Sharon Lampher, the woman they’d met on the beach, and wondered how long she would last if her husband got killed or bitten, or if he died of a heart attack. How long would any of them last out there?

  The factory smelled of cleanser and rust. The wiry blur at the factory door had introduced himself as Tom. Piranha also knew that the woman named Jackie was there hanging close to the Twins. All Piranha could see of Jackie was her chest. The Twins were trying to sidle up to her, nudging each other out of the way. Not playing it cool at all.

  Piranha stuck close to Sonia, but she seemed irritated by it. She inched away from him again as soon as Tom came into the room. She would deny it, but today she moved away from him whenever a new man came into sight. Keeping her options open.

  Piranha was pissed off, but his eyes were a bigger problem. Sonia had asked why his eyes were so red, but he hadn’t told her everything. He hadn’t wanted to scare her … and he didn’t know how it might change things for them.

  After all, he and Sonia were just alike. They were survivors.

  “You guys seeing lots of freaks?” Piranha said to Tom’s blur.

  “Always, and right behind you,” Tom said. “Past three months, we’ve killed about a thousand, maybe more. They keep coming. They’re attracted to clusters of humans. But only a dozen or so had ever made it into town, and we handled ’em quick. Lost a couple of dogs, though.”

  Piranha, Dean, and Darius whistled at the numbers.

  “But this here’s our secret weapon,”
Tom said.

  Piranha could barely make out the huge rolls and rolls of fencing piled inside, but the gray mass Tom gestured toward was tall enough to stir his heart. Hell, yeah!

  “My family’s been running this factory since World War II,” Tom said. “We had four orders ready to go out when the freaks hit. We just kept the fence for ourselves. Scavenged from the surrounding land. Got a hold of all the raw stock we could. We can always put it to good use.” He lowered his voice. “Town’s biggest industry was my daddy’s fence plant. That’s what really saved Domino Falls—not Wales.”

  No mistaking he wanted to make that point good and clear.

  If Piranha’s eyes had been working right, filled with distraction, he might have missed the tremor in the man’s voice, something that sounded more like anger than pride.

  Six

  The woman who met Kendra and Ursalina at the main intersection in town was slightly plump and ruddy-faced, with pinned white hair. She called herself Granny Daisy. Kendra felt better about her first separation from Terry since quarantine.

  “I thought that was the schoolhouse at the edge of town, out by the fence factory,” Kendra said. The quaint building had reminded her of Little House on the Prairie.

  “Too hard to patrol out on the fringes,” Granny Daisy said. “Besides, that old elementary wasn’t near big enough. That’s why we keep the kids at the theater. Dead center of town. I have any problems, I ring a bell and the whole town is here. A town’s not worth a snot if it can’t protect its children.”

  The Olde Domino Theatre was a redbrick building in the middle of Main Street. The red lettering in the marquee read All Children We come, missing a letter in welcome, although the message still got across. The theater was fenced off from its neighbors. Except for the barred windows and razor wire above the fence, it looked like a regular theater. If the outer town defenses failed, the freaks would have to start over again if they wanted to get to the kids.

  Traditional classroom desks crammed the lobby, and twelve students between the ages fourteen and nineteen were getting a wicked geometry lesson on a rolling chalkboard from a pockmarked woman with bright red hair. Life had taken everything but math out of the teacher. Her voice was strong as she tapped the board.