by Pamela Jekel
The dominant bull roared and tusked his first rival, rising out of the water and pushing him backwards with his huge canines flashing. In the crash of their bodies, Kiboko shoved herself underwater, searching for her calf, but there was so much roiled dung and debris in the water, she could see nothing. And then there, a flash of pink and gray, her calf was trying to get to the surface downriver. She flung herself through the bodies to the open water, pushed up behind him, and carried him to the surface. A hundred yards downriver from the still-battling males, they crawled up onto a sandbar to rest.
A crocodile rose in the shallows, his eyes just above the surface, watching as the calf suckled. Then he submerged again and went downriver after other prey.
Chapter Seven
Jack and Skylar Cummings
Euharlee, Georgia, 2028
“Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.”
H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, 1898
It seemed to Jack that the sun was getting larger these days. This May was hotter than any he remembered. Global warming, maybe. Or maybe he was just too old for this shit. He leaned on his shovel for a moment, watching Sky working her hoe up and down the rows. Her back was broader, muscled, but it was getting permanently bowed. With her hair short and tucked under her hat, it was hard to tell her from the young men who worked the fields on either side of her. No roundness to her rump, no meat on her bones.
Scott walked by, his favorite guard. They knew most of the soldiers well now, after nearly four years in camp. Whatever resentment they might have felt at their guns, their orders, their attitudes, was long gone. The soldiers were just as thin as the citizens, aging almost as fast. Hard to resent guns when they stood between you and death. Even after all this time, there were still enough thugs alive out there to make it dangerous to wander outside the protection of the guards. Or that’s what they were told. He hadn’t actually seen any survivors outside but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Usually he was too tired to give it much thought.
“You okay?” Scott asked from his position at the perimeter. It was common knowledge that the black workers tolerated the heat and the physical labor better than the whites. Scott didn’t want any strokes on his watch.
Jack nodded, wiping his face. “Just taking a break.” He looked over the expanse of the fields they’d planted six weeks ago. Always the same crops now, corn, squash, and beans. He could remember the tomatoes, the watermelons, and silver queen corn of his childhood. And peaches! Succulent Georgia peaches, warm and full of sweet juice that ran down your chin. Over ice cream or in cobbler.
He shook his head and began weeding his corn row again. He thought about food more now, he realized, than he’d ever thought about sex. Who would have believed that was possible? How long had it been since he’d made love to his wife? He tried to recall the last time. Two months? Four? He didn’t even miss it anymore. Guess she didn’t either. With cold showers restricted to once a week, they were usually too dirty to find sex enticing. He knew he smelled rank, and her own odors were hardly better. He wondered what Chase was doing right now. His last letter said he’d been on safari with his foster family, and that he’d shot a gazelle. Jack was pretty certain there wasn’t a single deer or rabbit left alive in the Eastern U.S. Probably not much left in the rivers, either.
There had been so many deaths, he was almost numb to it now. All the heart attack and stroke victims, too many suicidal depressives leaping from the tallest buildings on campus, at least one a week. No Prozac, Xanax, Lexapro, cold turkey for most of them. With hallucinations and severe psychoses on top of depression, he couldn’t blame them for taking the leap. One thing about field work, it gave you lots of time to think. Which was not always a good thing.
His hoe was dull. Surprised it could even cut through the hard clay. They needed rain. Half the workers were on their knees, working with their hands. Not enough tools, not enough water, not enough anything.
“Time to switch,” Scott said.
Jack could tell he hated having to say it as much as Jack hated to hear it. He walked over and handed his hoe to another worker, who straightened up with relief.
“Thanks,” she said, and she passed her gloves to him. They dwarfed her hands, barely fit his.
All over the field, the exchange happened, as they shared tools, gloves, hats, whatever they had. Now he could see that Sky had no hat or hoe; the man beside her had both. She was pulling on his gloves. She knelt in the dirt and began to crawl up the row, weeding by hand.
Finally, the day’s work was through, and they began to walk back to the tent camp. No more buses; those were saved for rotation. Most everywhere they had to go, their feet had to take them. In two months, they’d likely see the first beans, and in three maybe some corn. If they got rain. Dinner would be sparse, as it always was in the spring months, at the end of the winter stores and before the crops were in. Cornbread and spring greens again, maybe some dried apples, if they got lucky. He could still remember the small piece of canned ham they shared last Easter, just a bite but it was more vivid in his memory than his son’s face. And the little sliver of canned pineapple. Like sweet heaven on his tongue.
It was assembly that night, and they left their tents and gathered in the middle of the camp for the news. Captain Arnold spoke, as usual. His uniform was stained, and his beard was unkempt, but he still held their respect as the highest government authority in camp. A practical man, Captain kept his pep talks to a minimum. He also knew that any information was better received on a relatively full stomach, so he planned their weekly assemblies for after the kitchen workers were finished with wash-up.
“Good evening, citizens,” he began as always. “News from the interior, first. Good rainfall this month, so we’re expecting wheat harvest to be better than last year. Grass is high on the plains, and the cattle herds had good increase. We can hope for shipments of beef this fall, if we can get the repairs finished on the Missouri rail line. The flu epidemic in the north seems to have burned itself out, and we are moving those citizens out of quarantine.”
“Is New York city still in lockdown?” a man asked.
“No, it’s not. I know you’ve got family there, Sam, but I must ask you to keep your questions for the end, as usual, okay? We can talk privately, if you like.”
Sam nodded, glancing at his wife.
“As you know, this winter was difficult, with rationing down to fifteen-hundred calories per day. We think we’ll be able to up that ration this summer, something we’ll all look forward to for sure.”
“We only made it through the winter because there was less work to be done,” Sky said to Jack, taking his hand. “You know that won’t be the case in the hot months. It never is.”
“We’ll be okay,” Jack said, pressing her hand gently, mindful of her light bones and little flesh to protect them. The skin on her palm was coarsened with old blisters and calluses, the back of her hand very brown. She had long ago lost her wedding ring, fallen off in some field. He looked down at her feet. They had always been pretty, he thought, and she’d been vain of them, taking care with her pedicure. He had nicknamed them, “the pinks.” Now, he could not tell her widened, dark and roughened feet from any of the other bare feet standing around him. No more pinks.
“Now for the bad news, people,” Captain Arnold continued. “It’s time for rotation.”
A collective groan rose from the camp; even the soldiers dropped their eyes lest their captain see their disappointment. Everyone knew it had to be coming, but no one welcomed the shift in work detail. Back to Emory, back to endless latrine duty and stifling, filthy dorms rather than tents, back to crowded conditions with the ever-present fear of disease or infection. But they knew that the field camps were considered the plum assignments; they had to rotate out in their turn.
Sky smiled and glanced at one of her friends in camp, a mother of two girls. The mothers found something to welcome in the rotation. At least they got to see their kids at meals. The other small consolation was mail. Those who had kids in the Transport Program were almost as hungry for word from them as they were for anything edible.
Assembly was over, and Jack went over to talk to Scott, as he often did since he’d been made team captain. Scott sat by the fire on a downed log, quietly smoking his pipe. He had whittled it from a corncob, and he filled it with dried pennywort, something he said his grandfather used to do. “Hey,” he said as Jack took a seat. “Bet Sky’s looking forward to seeing her girl.”
Jack nodded. “We both are. How’s the infection level back on campus?”
“Better. The flu’s mostly burned out, quarantine’s nearly empty, I heard. Should be okay.” He grinned. “Had two new babies last month. Two girls, healthy enough.”
“That’s great. Must be tough giving birth with only aspirin and hot water bottles to get through it.”
Scott shrugged. “What’s the choice? We haven’t had any real anesthesia for a year, least not here. No IV bags left. I heard they have some still out West, but here, about all we can do is quarantine, hydrate, and give what we got. Won’t hurt my feelings to get back. Maybe I can pull computer duty. Last rotation, my roommate had it, and he said it was amazing to be back online again.”
“So there is an Internet still?”
“Yeah. Advisors made sure of that, I guess. Although last I heard, there’ve been no messages from them for at least six months.”
“Really? That long?”
“Nothing but silence, so far as I know. But they did that before, right? And then all of a sudden, there’s that green screen and their message.”
“Yeah,” Jack nodded. “What about looters. Any reports of those lately?”
“I wouldn’t know much about that. I haven’t pulled combat in two years, thank God.”
“What news do you hear about the rest of the country?”
Scott sighed. “Not much more than you know, really. We got about a seventy- percent survival rate in the Midwest, about fifty-percent in the West. Hawaii never even lost power, did you know that? About thirty percent in the South, and less than ten percent north of D.C. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard much about any looters for months. I think most of them are dead by now.”
“You ever see any feral dogs on patrol?”
Scott looked down. “I haven’t seen anything moving outside the work crews in a year, I don’t guess. Why?” Most of the soldiers were still sensitive on the subject of dogs. The worst uprising from the citizens they’d had to suppress had followed the assembly announcement that quarantined pets had been exterminated. People were still physically strong and capable of righteous anger back then. Such an announcement would scarcely make a ripple today.
“I’m thinking maybe of trying to make it back to my own place,” he said, keeping his voice low.
Scott looked up, startled. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“I figure sooner or later, they’re going to have to close down the camps. We can’t make it through another winter like the last one. We’re weaker now.”
“But they’re going to be bringing in more food, Captain said.”
Jack nodded. “I heard him. I still want to take my family back home.”
“Sky’ll never go for it.”
Jack grimaced. “Yeah, you might be right.”
“Shit, I’d rather face a pack of dogs,” Scott grinned. “She’ll tear you a new one.”
“Well, don’t say anything, okay? I might lose my nerve.”
Scott smoked for a moment. “I guess I can understand why you’d want to try, at least. Something you might think about. I heard some muckety-muck Admiral’s trying to commandeer a Navy ship to take it to Africa and get his son. If you can get word to your boy, he might be able to get a berth home.”
“When’d you hear that?”
“Just a week ago. Don’t know if it’s for real. Some guy rotated in from Savannah and said it. For what it’s worth, I know the Navy is traveling to other ports now, bringing in what supplies they can get. Food, drugs, coffee, there’s still oil in Caracas. Probably some zinc and diamonds in Namibia. Anyway, if you’re going to leave campus, get word to your boy first. The only mail that’s moving is military. What would they do with zinc, by the way?”
Jack thought for a moment. “Galvanization, maybe? It’s used to coat iron or steel to protect it from corrosion. Which means, they must be manufacturing somewhere, if they need zinc.”
“Not in the Northeast,” Scott said. “Not that I know of, anyway.”
“For the last twenty years, China’s made more steel than we do. Cheaper, too.”
“Not anymore,” Scott shook his head. “I guess it’s coming out of the Midwest someplace. West of the Mississippi, probably. Wonder what we’re trading these days? Silver or gold, maybe?” He snorted. “Not dollars, I bet. Maybe weapons. We still got lots of those. Anyway, if you do leave, when will you go?”
“I don’t know. Before they open the gates, that’s for sure. Once they close the camps, it’ll only be tougher.” He put out his hand. “Your word on your silence?”
Scott shook his hand. “I’ll see if I can get any update on that Savannah ship.”
That night, Jack waited until the camp was quiet, and they were in their bedrolls.
“It’s already sticky,” Sky fretted, pulling back the tent flap. “Going to be hotter than last summer, I think.”
“It’d be better if we had a river to cool off in, wouldn’t it?”
Sky ran her hands through her short hair. “Maybe they’ll get the A/C back on in the dorms this year. Even an hour a night would be better than nothing. Now that we’re crammed into three buildings, that shouldn’t be so tough.”
“This time, let’s see if we can get on a lower floor.” He paused, gathering determination. “Or we can head for Watkinsville and swim in our own river each night.”
She turned and faced him. “What are you talking about?”
“I think they’re going to close the camps soon, Sky. And when that happens, the roads will be flooded with refugees trying to get back to someplace that might not even be there anymore. I want to get out of here now, before that happens.”
“Close the camps? But they just said we’re getting more food soon from the Midwest.”
“I know they said that. But I don’t think we can wait that long, even if they’re telling the truth.”
“What about the Advisors?”
“There’s been no message from them in over six months, Scott says.”
“So what? They’re still running things, even if they’re not talking about it. Still fusing whatever they want, whenever they want to do it. For all we know, they’ve got another epidemic up their slimy sleeves.”
“I think we should go.”
“Because they’re going to kick us out,” she said, rolling her eyes. “So we should beat them to the punch by kicking ourselves out. Makes sense.” She threw herself down on the bedroll next to him. “Perfect timing, Jack. Because my day didn’t suck enough yet.”
“I’ve been thinking about it for awhile, actually.”
“You know the rules; we can’t come back once we leave.”
“I think we’ll have a better chance on our own land. If we leave now, we can still get in some crops.”
“I don’t even know if those seeds we buried are any good anymore.”
“We need to try.”
She fell silent. “You really think they’re going to close the camps?”
“I would, if I were them. If they could ship us, I think they’d send half of us out West and parcel the rest out in the South where there are still some working farms. But instead, I think they’ll just shut down the power and open the gates. End of.”
“Jesus,” she said, “half of these people would never make i
t five miles. No food? No water?”
“Just what they could carry, beg, or steal. So the question is, do you want to be on the road just the three of us, or do you want to travel with about fifty dragging behind you? I’m team captain. They’ll follow me, whether I want them to or not. I can’t take care of them.”
“No,” she acknowledged, “of course you can’t. But they’ll expect you to, somehow, because somebody’s been doing it for all these years.” She moved closer to him.
Jack embraced her. Her body next to his was a remarkably healing thing, a sense of wholeness that he’d almost forgotten. The sounds of the camp seemed to recede, and for that moment, it was almost as it used to be between them.
“Okay,” she said then. “Let’s do it.”
He pulled back and gazed at her, amazed. “Really? I thought I’d be in for a battle.”
“No, you may be right. And if you are, we should leave now. If you’re not right, we still may be better off. Miranda won’t be so easy, you know.”
He sighed. “I hadn’t thought past you, to tell the truth. But with both of us in agreement, she’ll come around. She’s still our daughter.”
“Well. We think she is, anyway. She might think otherwise.”
“She’s ten,” Jack said with conviction. “She’ll do as we decide.”
She kissed him soundly, the first time in weeks it seemed. “Okay, we’ll hold that thought.”
He kissed her back. “I’m really surprised you agreed so easily.”
“Actually,” she said, “I had been kinda thinking of it myself. But I never thought you’d go for it, team captain and all. You seem settled into the routine and resigned to it. You never talk of the outside anymore.”
“But I dream of it constantly.”
