by Keith Taylor
“Just fifteen gallons? That ain’t gonna be nearly enough to last.”
“Well I’m sayin’ that’s what we got to work with, Joe. I don’t know what else to tell ya. We can’t just magic diesel outta the air, can we?”
Chief Chuck Roberts leaned over the edge of the counter. He looked like he was talking to himself until an unseen voice came from the other side.
“Alright, first thing tomorrow I want people out at the farms siphoning everything they can find, understand? Tractors, trailers, whatever. We’ll need every last drop for the pumps until we can figure out some way to divert the stream, or everyone gonna go mighty thirsty.”
The Chief nodded. “OK, I’ll go get some men together, but I can’t make any promises.” He turned towards the door and nodded to Shepherd on the way out. “Good to see you back, Shep. Thought we’d lost you for a while there.” He pulled open the door and nodded politely to Abi. “Ma’am.”
As the door squeaked closed the unseen voice from behind the counter returned. “We really could have used your help in town today, Mr. Shepherd.” The voice sounded stern and more than a little disappointed, like a teacher scolding a student. “I didn’t have you pegged as a man to bolt at the first sign of trouble. Thought that was more your daddy’s style.” There came a piercing metallic screech, and a moment later a figure appeared, dragging with great difficulty a heavy vat of used vegetable oil across the tile floor. He was a little person, a hair under four feet tall, his brown mop of hair stopping just shy of the counter top.
Shepherd rushed over to help, lifting the container from the ground and swinging it onto a nearby table. “I’m sorry about that, Big Joe. I thought I’d try to make it out to my cabin before everything went south.”
Big Joe wiped his hands on his shirt, adjusted his half moon spectacles, looked at Shepherd over the frames and sighed. “Well we’d all like to get out, Shep. I've got my own place in the woods down by Clarksville, but I have a responsibility, you know? To the town. To the people. You took that on just the same as me the moment you picked up your shield. I’m just a little disappointed, is all.” He waved his hand dismissively. “But forget that now. Water under the bridge. Now won’t you introduce me to your lady friend?”
Shepherd turned to Abi. “Yeah… Big Joe, this is Abi Ross, down from D.C. She got caught up in a train wreck down by Bedford. Abi, this is Big Joe, the mayor of Willow Falls.”
Abi reached down and shook his hand. “It’s nice to meet you... Joe.”
“Big Joe,” the mayor corrected, shooting her a wink. “Don’t worry, I chose the name myself. No need to walk on eggshells. That name got me elected, didn’t it, Shep? Vote Big Joe Burnham. The best things come in small packages.” He let out a long laugh, fading into an awkward cough as he saw Abi looking uncomfortable.
“Say, Shep, can you get that oil strained for me? Chief got the well pump up and running but we’re about to run out of diesel, and we need all the fuel we can get. Soon as the water stops running we’ll all be relying on that well.” He turned back to Abi as Shepherd stepped behind the counter to search for a sieve. “Train crash, huh? Sounds rough. Just thank God you weren’t on that plane.”
Abi frowned. “What plane?”
“What plane? Oh boy, you should see it. 737 came down about ten miles east, right by Brierville. No survivors. Hell of a mess, I hear.” He shook his head, staring into the darkness. “You know, I once read that there are five thousand flights in the air above the US at any one time. Just think, if each of those planes carried just a hundred passengers that means we had half a million folks in the air when the power went out.” He snapped his fingers. “Gone, all of them, just like that.”
Big Joe noticed Shepherd brandishing a sieve at the counter. “No, Shep, sieve’s not good enough, you need something finer. Pam keeps some cheesecloth over by the basin. You gotta filter it through that, you hear, or it’ll just gum up the genny.” He turned back to Abi. “Hard to fathom how anyone could do something like this to us, isn’t it? Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men, am I right?”
Abi shivered. She hadn’t even thought about the planes. She couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if she’d been been bumped to a later flight, if she hadn’t started cursing in the airport. “You think all the planes crashed?”
Big Joe nodded sadly. “I’d say so. Those things are so full of electronic gizmos these days I don’t see how any of them could have stayed in the air. It’d take a miracle to bring a plane down deadstick without steering, flaps or brakes. Poor bastards. What a Godawful way to go.” He turned to the counter. “By the way, Shep, Red Matthews over in Monroeville sends his regards. I’m guessing that load of pork that landed up in the diner was your doing, right?”
Shepherd looked up from his work. “How’d you know that?”
“Driver said some crazy cop saved his life out on the road, then scared him half to death with talk of of an EMP. You and the Chief are the only cops in town who aren’t too lazy to unzip to take a piss, and Chuck was with me all day. Figured it must have been you.”
Shepherd secured the cheesecloth over a bucket and opened the drainage tap at the base of the oil vat, allowing the used oil to drip through. “Well, I’m just glad he made it to town OK. The roads aren’t safe out there.” He walked back to the front and took a seat by Abi, pulling out his cigarettes. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Joe. We were out by the Best Buy in—”
“Woah woah woah, you can’t smoke that in here.” Big Joe plucked the cigarette from Shepherd’s lips and dropped it on the table.
“Come on… Seriously?”
“Law’s the law, Shep, and that’s one I happen to agree with. Besides, Pam’d string you up by your boots if you stunk up her place.”
Shepherd sighed, looking forlornly at the Marlboro on the table. “OK, fine. Now listen. Abi and I were at the Best Buy down in Bedford, and we saw something you need to hear about.”
Big Joe fell into a seat as Abi told him the story. For five minutes she described it in excruciating detail. The standoff at the pickup. The hostage inside the Walmart. Shepherd jumped in and described the body in the Best Buy, and Big Joe raised a hand to his mouth as Abi reached the point at which the soldiers gunned down unarmed citizens.
“Good Lord,” he whispered when she was done, visibly shaken. For a moment he sat in silence, staring out through the window, and then he picked up the cigarette from the table. “Screw it. Give me a light, Shep.” He waited as Shepherd pulled out a Marlboro for himself, and leaned in to the match he presented. “I didn’t know things had gotten that bad already.”
“Yeah,” Shepherd nodded, “it’s bad. And it’s only gonna get worse, Joe, even here. Even with our folks. Everyone seems OK now with the fire and a belly full of food. They can convince themselves it’s not happening, but what about when people start to empty their pantries? What about when the pump fails or the well dries up? I already saw people hiding behind their curtains in the western suburbs. They know what’s coming. I know you’re doing your best, Joe, stocking up the diesel and keeping everyone calm, but you know it can’t last forever, right? Whether it’s tomorrow, next week or next month someone’s gonna go hungry while their neighbor has food on the table, and that’s when it’ll turn ugly.”
Big Joe leaned back in his chair and sighed. “They’re good people, Shep, you know that.”
Shepherd nodded. “They are, you’re right. But the folks in Bedford are good people too, and today we saw them pull guns on one another. And I don’t think those soldiers were acting on orders. Look, you may not have liked my dad… Hell, even I didn’t like my dad, but he was right about one thing. When the food runs out people turn nasty. Even good people.”
Big Joe blew out a thick stream of smoke and pulled off his glasses, squeezing the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “So what are you suggesting, Shep? Are you saying we should just go every man for himself? Give up now and turn to an
imals before everyone else?”
Shepherd shook his head and glanced at Abi. “No, Joe. I’m saying… we’re saying that we should get everyone out. All of us. The whole town, or at least those who want to come along. You heard the news. There’s ships coming in to evacuate, and some of them have gotta be docking out at Norfolk. That’s a long drive for just a couple of people. Lots of risks along the way, but a convoy? That’s a different story, Joe. Hundreds of people, lots of trucks, lots of guns. Safety in numbers, Joe.”
Big Joe slipped his glasses back on, smiled and shook his head, turning to Abi. “You know you’ve hitched your wagon to an absolute lunatic, right? What do you think of all this?”
Abi nodded. “He may be crazy, but I’ll be damned if he isn’t right. I was about to die today when I was alone. Shepherd came along as rescued me. I’m only alive because we went from one to two. Every man for himself isn’t going to save us, and I think if you stay here you’re just waiting to die. That’s my honest take on it, Big Joe.”
For a long moment the mayor sat in silence, his cigarette burning unnoticed down to the butt, and then finally he stubbed it out on the underside of the table, sighed and slid himself down from his chair.
“Well, I guess we should go and ask who wants to come along for the ride, shouldn’t we? Not a bad idea to skip town anyway. Pam'll kill me the moment she smells this smoke.”
΅
:::23:::
THERE WAS NO big speech, no grand rallying cry. Big Joe Burnham didn’t stand before the roaring fire and pound his fist on a podium, loudly make his case for leaving the town behind and striking out for the coast. It didn’t work like that, not in a small town like Willow Falls. Not in a town where everyone knew everyone else by sight, and most by name.
Joe, Shepherd and Abi simply moved through the crowd, joining small groups and making their proposal face to face before breaking off to the next group, sending new converts to the plan to convince yet more. Pam helped bring a lot of people around, especially when she promised to cook for the convoy. This was a revolution born over burgers and beer, and the idea spread like wildfire through the crowd.
Some decided to stay behind. More than Shepherd had hoped, but he understood their feelings. A few didn’t believe there was any real danger. They were certain the power could back on in a day or two and everyone would come back feeling very foolish. Some understood how serious the situation was but simply didn’t want to leave Willow Falls, mostly the older folk who’d been born in the town and said they’d be damned if they’d die elsewhere.
Some even wanted to strike out on their own to track down family elsewhere, but there were no more than a handful. Campbell County was close knit. Most people who were born there didn’t stray far, and apart from a few who had kids off at college most families in Willow Falls lived within yelling distance of their relatives.
In the end a little more than four hundred people were ready to make the trip, and groups were sent out to the western suburbs – mostly non-threatening women with their kids in tow – to knock on doors and ask those who hadn’t come to the square. Big Joe seemed to relax as the numbers mounted up. He said he felt his responsibility was to the people rather than the town itself, so when more than half of the town agreed to leave he felt he finally had a mandate. He wasn’t leaving Willow Falls behind. He was taking it with him.
As midnight struck Shepherd found the mayor sitting at the foot of the willow tree in the square with a notepad, calling out questions and scratching down answers. Big Joe passed him an open beer as he sat.
“So what’s the verdict?”
Big Joe flipped a page in his notepad. “It’s gonna be a tight squeeze, but I think we’ll manage. Frank Anderson’s been at the auto shop all day working his fingers to the bone, bless him, and he says he’s managed to get about eighty vehicles back on the road. By my reckoning about fifty of those belong to people coming along with us, including the school bus, so we’re looking at maybe seven or eight people to a car. It won’t be comfortable, but we can manage.”
“What about supplies? You got any numbers?”
Big Joe squeezed the bridge of his nose, clearly tired, and flipped to another page. “Let’s see… We’re solid on fuel, that’s for sure. I sent the Chief off with a few guys to siphon from the cars that are still dead, so everyone should have a full tank by morning. The water’s still running so that ain’t a problem. Food’s a bit of an issue, though. I’ve put Pam in charge of that, but she says we’ll struggle to find a week’s worth for four hundred without leaving those who plan to stay behind short. And even a week’s supply might not be enough, since who knows what we’ll find when we reach Norfolk?”
“And are we good for weapons?”
Big Joe chuckled, pulling open his jacket to reveal the Sig Sauer P238 in his shoulder holster. Both the holster and pistol were modified to account for his condition: the holster specially designed to fit his slightly curved spine and the pistol with a modified trigger guard to accommodate his thick, short trigger finger. “Please… That’s like asking if we have enough oxygen to make the trip. We’ll be able to handle anything that comes our way short of a tank, believe me. The only thing that really worries me is medicine. By my count we have four diabetics in the group, about a half dozen asthmatics, and Earl Coffey needs beta blockers for his blood pressure. We’ve turned over the pharmacy but you know how they never have enough stock in there. We’ll probably need to stop along the way.” He lowered his voice and leaned in conspiratorially. “And I don’t want to name names, but you know we have about two dozen folks who’ll go into withdrawal by morning without their oxy. The Chief’s holding everything we got from the pharmacy, but honestly I just don’t know what we’re supposed to do about that. Do we just give it to ‘em?”
Shepherd tipped back a little beer, turning up his nose as he realized it was already lukewarm from sitting close to the fire. “I think you can probably mark that down in the category of not your problem, Joe. Yeah, keep them stoned until we get to Norfolk. After they get on a boat you can hand them off to a doc, but until then the last thing we need is a bunch of folks going through withdrawal on the road. And I have a bunch of morphine in the truck if we run short. That should buy us a little time.”
Big Joe nodded thoughtfully. “I guess you’re right. I can’t say I like the idea of being some kind of drug pusher, but I guess we have bigger fish to fry.” He lifted the beer from Shepherd’s hand and took a long pull. “Well, I think we should all turn in. Chief says he can get everyone gassed up by 8AM, and I want to get on the road as soon as we can.”
Shepherd nodded. “Good call. Hey, why don’t you crash at my place tonight? I don’t like thought of you driving out to the farm. You never know who you might find on the road.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I think—”
“I won’t take no for an answer, Joe. Trust me, if you’d seen what I’ve seen today you wouldn’t want to be out there five miles from town on your lonesome.”
Big Joe hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Alright, I take your point. I’ll finish up and head on over now. You still leave your back door unlocked, right?”
“Right. You can take my room, and I’ll set up the cot for Abi downstairs.”
“I appreciate that, Shep. You know how my back gets if I don’t sleep on a real bed.”
“I know, I know. Get some rest, and we’ll see you at 8 sharp.”
Big Joe pulled himself awkwardly to his feet, tucked his notepad in his jacket pocket and strode off into the crowd. Shepherd took another swig of his lukewarm beer, his heart sinking as he realized it might be a while before he next enjoyed an ice cold bottle, and he looked around at the crowd gathered by the fire.
Just this morning he’d left all these people to die. He’d driven by like a coward, refusing to look them in the eye as he fled to safety, and now here he was sitting in the middle of a cheerful crowd with a beer. Nobody had shot him any dirty looks. Nobody had yelle
d at him. Apart from Pam, Big Joe and the Chief nobody had even mentioned his absence, and nobody seemed to think worse of him for leaving.
Big Joe was right. These were good people. They’d been hit full in the face with the biggest challenge any of them could ever imagine, and they’d responded by working together. While Shepherd had been driving away – just as Shep Senior had taught him – they’d set about repairing each other’s cars. They’d worked on fixing the pump to the town well, and when their work was done they’d gathered in the square and shared their food. The world might be going to Hell, but Shep Senior had been dead wrong. These people were worth saving.
Shepherd grinned as he noticed Mrs. Klein through a gap in the crowd. She was sitting beside the fire in an armchair someone had lugged out for her, and around her stood a group of folks who patiently listened as she held court, no doubt complaining that fires had been warmer back in the old days, and the cushion in her chair wasn’t quite soft enough. Mrs. Klein hadn’t said a single interesting thing since some time around 1975, but from the look of her audience of kind, patient people you’d think she was giving away the secret of how to turn lead into gold.
Shepherd picked himself up from the floor and brushed himself down, tossing his bottle in the trash can by the tree. Over by Mrs Klein he saw Abi, nodding along as the old lady talked, and as Shepherd caught her eye she flashed him a look that screamed get me out of this conversation in five languages.
He approached carefully, hoping the short sighted Mrs. Klein wouldn’t notice him as long as he made no sudden movements, but she caught him just as soon as he reached Abi. Shepherd touched her on the arm and nodded his head towards the truck, and Abi gratefully smiled as she started to back away.
“Good evening, Mr. Shepherd,” Mrs. Klein said, squinting up at him through thick glasses.
“Happy Fourth, Mrs. Klein. I gotta get Abi off home now. Big day tomorrow.”
The old woman nodded curtly, and as Shepherd turned away he felt her bony hand grip his arm tight.
