by Pamela Jekel
Jack’s tears stopped as abruptly as they’d started; he took one deep shuddering breath, crossed himself, and then turned away from the mounds. “Yeah. I don’t know how Mom managed to get him back home from the hospital. I guess she had some intuition she wasn’t going to make it either.”
Skylar took his hand, and they walked back into the house. After checking the kitchen and finding it stripped, turning on the water and finding nothing in the pipes, and inspecting the ravaged upstairs and downstairs, they went up to the attic. It had been pillaged pretty thoroughly, and the sewing machine was gone. Then down to the basement to see if the gun safe was still there. It was not. Back upstairs, they pulled aside a painting and a bookshelf, and Jack opened the wall safe. Inside, they found a note from his mother.
“My darling, I hope that you live long enough to find this note, and if you do, that you have managed to keep your family safe. Your father is gone, Jack, and I feel quite unwell. I do not think I will survive this disease, and I’m not even sure I’d wish to without your father. Know that he loved you and was so very proud of you, and that he spoke of you in his last few words. You gave him nothing but pleasure all of his life. And you gave delight and meaning to mine. May God bless and keep you, my Jack. Love always, Mother.”
Jack wiped his eyes, passed the note to Skylar for safekeeping, and then began to pull the contents of the safe out for inspection. “Look at this. Oh, my God.” He pulled out two handguns, both of them .32 Rugers with laser grips, six boxes of ammunition, three bags of silver coins, the deed to the house, two sets of car keys, stock certificates, a key to a safety deposit box at Suntrust Bank in Athens, and a tin can marked “Organic Hoedown Collection.”
“What’s that?” Miranda asked.
“Seeds!” Sky laughed in delight. “Look at this! Heirloom seeds, vacuum-packed!” She read the label aloud: “beans, beets, carrots, corn, cukes, greens, oh my Lord, three kinds of lettuce, onions, peas, squash. And tomatoes! Crimson sprinter and Best Boy! We’re rich!”
Jack pulled out his father’s hunting knife. “I can’t believe she had the good sense to put this in here,” he said. “Right next to her Bible.”
“Your mother was amazing,” Skylar said. “I always thought so.”
That night, they used clean washcloths and towels and the water from the hot water heater to get as clean as they’d been in weeks. They put Miranda to bed in the guest room and made up his parent’s bed with sheets Skylar found in the linen closet. “This feels so naughty,” she said, “sleeping in their bed. But to have a bed again, a real queen-size with real pillows,” she sighed and stretched her legs out, searching for the cool spots. “I know she’ll forgive us.”
“I guess there wasn’t any reason to steal sheets,” Jack said. “Every house in town has them.”
“Was there anything in their wine cellar?”
“Nope. Nothing in the kitchen, nothing in the wine cellar, but I found her emergency medical kit in the trunk of her car, so that’s something.”
“Well, I would say your parents paid more than their share of tax to this town. Your mother never had anything but a well-stocked larder, and I’ll bet your dad had ten cases of wine put down.”
“Yeah. Somebody made out, that’s for sure. But at least they didn’t find the safe. Tell me I’m a genius for bringing us here first.”
“You’re a genius,” she said. “And if they don’t put me to work cleaning latrines, I may actually stay with you a while longer.”
He chuckled lightly and began to stroke her breast. In the darkness, he could see the glimmer of her teeth as she turned towards him, welcoming him.
For the next three days, they ate their rations, walked the garden over and over, slept well, read books, played cards, and listened to the radio on his father’s crank set they found in the basement. At first they could find nothing but static, and then Jack noticed that the Emergency Alert band was marked, and they decided to try it at hourly intervals. He tried starting both cars, and neither of them had sufficient charge, but when he plugged his mother’s Mac into her cigarette lighter, it glowed yellow and then green for charging. “There might even be enough to charge the laptop,” he said, excited. “The Toyota won’t, but Mom’s good ol’ Buick will. Give me an American car every time.”
That night, they wrote an email to Chase, telling him where they were going. “Try to find out about any U.S. Navy ships coming to Mombasa,” Jack added. “We hear that there might be passage available back to Savannah. Keep writing, Chase, and send an email if you can, no guarantee we’ll be able to receive it, but try!” When they hit “send”, the little wheel showing “message sending” scrolled forever, and they never did see a “message sent” before the computer powered off. “I think it will get there,” Jack said. “And we’ll write him too, just to be sure.”
The next morning, they heard someone outside at the door, and Jack opened it to find a woman about Sky’s age setting a covered plate and a plastic jug of water down on his mother’s faded welcome mat. She backed off the porch. “Brought your food for the day.” Her face was wary. She was dressed in a spangled evening dress with silver dancing slippers on her feet.
“Thank you!” he said, ignoring her attire. He picked up the plate and peeked inside: three hardboiled eggs, three roasted potatoes, one onion, a twist of salt, some cooked beans, and a small packet of what looked to be home-made tortillas. “Wow, you have eggs!”
She nodded. “This time of year, we don’t have much in the way of vegetables, but the chickens are good layers. I need to see your wife and daughter too, Mister Cummings. I have to report back.”
He called Skylar and Miranda to the porch and took a seat on the top step, “Please stay a moment,” he said. “We’re perfectly healthy. I won’t come any closer to you than this, I promise.” Skylar stuck her head out the door, Miranda behind her. “Check this out, ladies! This fine citizen has brought us some fresh eggs.”
Miranda peered at the plate and then at the woman. “Why’re you all dressed up?”
The woman smiled at Miranda. “We use the fancy clothes for work duds, and when they get ruined, we just use them for rags. That way we don’t use up our useful clothes too fast. How do you feel, honey?”
“I feel just fine,” Miranda said, starting down the steps.
“No, no,” Jack said, pulling her back. “Sit down by me. We’re going to follow the rules. We’re still under quarantine until they say we’re not. But you can see, we’re all healthy. And we certainly appreciate the food.”
“You need more water?’
“Yes,” Skylar said. “How do you wash clothes?”
“At the river. You can do that after quarantine. My name is Sunny, and I’ll be bringing you two meals a day for the next four days. I’ll bring you more water this evening. Glad y’all are doing good.” She turned to go.
“Wait, Sunny,” Jack said. “Can you stay and talk just for a minute? We’ve got so many questions.”
She turned, obviously reluctant. “I’m really not supposed to, I’m just to leave the food, see all y’all, and then report back.”
“I understand,” Jack said. “I was just hoping someone would talk to us for a minute or two. We haven’t been around people since the camp.” He began to peel a hard-boiled egg. “This is fantastic. I haven’t had an egg in ages.” He broke it in half and handed half to Sky and half to Miranda, who promptly ate their shares with wide grins. “That way, you can report we’ve got good appetites, too!” He kept peeling eggs and making small talk until he sensed that Sunny had relaxed a bit.
Miranda leaned over, dipped her egg in the salt, and asked, “Do you have anybody my age here? I’m ten.”
“Not too many,” Sunny said, “most of them are older. But we’ve got forty-two kids.”
“Forty-two!” Skylar sat down next to Jack, reached for a tortilla, and scooped up a bit of beans. “How many people live here anyway?”
“Seven-hundred and sixty,” Sunny
said with pride, “and four babies coming this month.”
“Wow. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me,” Jack said. “I had no idea so many were still alive in Athens.”
Her face fell slightly. “Well, it’s not much considering we had a population of over two-hundred thousand before the Day. Plenty went to the camps, of course, but that’s how many we got now.”
“How do you feed so many?” Miranda asked.
“We got goats and chickens, sixteen horses, and twenty-one milk cows,” Sunny said, her voice lifting with pride again, “all over at the UGA ag buildings. The first few years were really hard. First came the siege, and we had to have armed guards day and night, and we couldn’t hardly eat even the eggs, no matter what, Council said, because we had to build our stock. We had no meat for at least a year, it seemed, even after the siege ended. Made do with what we could grow and fish, which scarcely kept us going. But now, we’re doing good. Y’all fixing to stay?”
Both Miranda and Sky glanced at Jack. He said, “No, we got our own land down in Watkinsville, just over the river?” He realized that he was unconsciously imitating her accent, sounding more Georgian with every word. “Just as soon as Council says we can, we’ll take our leave. Who’s on this Council, anyways?”
“Twelve elders,” she said. “My husband’s on it, his brother’s in the National Guard in Atlanta.”
“Would we be allowed to stay in this house?” Sky asked.
“No,” she shook her head. “New folks got to live down by Lake Herrick and the old golf course, you remember where that is?”
“The university golf course, over on the Oconee?” Jack asked.
“That’s right. That’s where we got the crops now, and we get water from the lake, and Council will give you a house over there, close by the river for bathing and washing. That way, you can walk to the ag buildings or the fields, wherever y’all assigned, and the night patrols can keep an eye on everybody at once. I got to go now, I need to get back,” she said, suddenly remembering herself. “I’ll be by again ‘bout five. Y’all take care.” She turned and left, the sequins on her dress catching the sun.
They saved the potatoes and onion for lunch; Sky sliced the onion thin, salted it, and laid the slices in the sun until they softened. After lunch, Jack and Sky went to the porch to sit in the shade and talk privately. “Are you tempted to stay?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “I still think this place is in for trouble when the camps in Atlanta empty out. I want to be on our own land, on our own river—“
“Which is downriver from Athens,” she said.
“Our well water is good, and I don’t care if somebody else has washed in the Oconee before I do. We need to be in charge of our own future. I don’t care how gilded it is, it’s still a cage.”
“Okay, I was just asking. It might be nice to have some luxuries again, and Athens is going to get them before Watkinsville does, that’s for sure. Like electricity and piped water and at least some medical care.”
“I don’t even want to open that possibility with Miranda, okay? We’ve got a plan, and we’re sticking to it. Agreed?”
She nodded. “How do you figure to get out of here if they want us to stay?”
“They’re not going to care if we stay or not,” Jack grinned. “Remember? You’re just a business major.”
Over the next four days, Sunny brought them food and Jack was able to get her to share more information about the Athens Township, as it was called. They had three doctors but no real medical supplies. The doctors handled gunshots and farm accidents, primarily. “Mostly, just wound-stitchers,” Sunny said. They had four nurses, a midwife, and a chemist, their “Apothecary”, who was able to produce some compounds from the herbal gardens tended by the women. That was the extent of their medical care.
They had propane tanks at several locations, and enough stored diesel to run four generators at staggered hours which powered a central computer, some power tools, and kept three electric vehicles charged. Four hybrid trucks hauled produce, livestock, and visitors such as themselves; solar panels on the UGA campus offered trickle electricity when the sun was up, and that was the extent of their transportation.
They had no mail delivery, of course, but they had one CB radio ham operator and many radios in town, some of them emergency crank radios, two sets of field handsets, their central computer, weekly announcements by the Council, and those were the extent of their communication abilities.
Sunny said on the third day, “My husband, Dwight, says the Council is going to vote you in sure enough. Y’all will be good additions to the Township. You need to stay.”
“We need to leave after dinner tomorrow,” Jack said, as soon as she left the yard.
But when Sunny came with their dinner plate, she bounded up the porch and banged on the door with none of her usual reticence. Jack came quickly to the door and she blurted, “The ships are gone! They’re gone, Mister Cummings!”
“What!”
Miranda and Skylar came to the door, and Sunny spontaneously hugged them each in turn. “They’re gone! The aliens left! Dwight got an email from his brother in Atlanta, they got up this morning, and the ship over Atlanta is gone! He says the Army is checking all over the country, and so far, looks like they all left at once, just like they all appeared at once. Gone!”
“Thank God!” Skylar screamed, dancing Miranda and Sunny around with joy. She threw her arms around Jack. “Now Chase can come home!”
“Six and a half years,” Jack said, amazed. “The invasion is over. I can’t believe it. Did the Advisors leave a computer message of some kind?”
“Believe it!” Sunny shouted. “I don’t know about any message, but our prayers are finally answered. We can be Americans again. I just had to tell you first thing, and now I got to get back. There’ll be a Council meeting tomorrow night over at Beech Haven Baptist, at Broad and Milledge, you know where that is?”
Jack nodded, “I think so.”
“Curfew’s extended until ten so just go three blocks over, and if you get lost, follow the sounds of the shouting and singing!” Sunny said.
“Thank you so much!” Skylar said. “See you tomorrow night!”
Sunny waved and hurried off to spread the good news.
“I can’t believe it,” Jack said again, easing himself down on the porch steps with the dinner plate. “They’re gone.”
“It’s over!” Miranda screamed.
Sky grew quiet. “What if this is what they did before? Disappear for a few days, then come back again, and right after, a third of the world dies? How do we know they’re gone for good?”
“We don’t,” Jack said. “Which is why we’re leaving tomorrow night.”
“No!” Miranda said. “We can’t even go to the party?”
“Tomorrow night is a perfect time to go, kitten. They’ll all be at the meeting; they’ll leave only a skeletal patrol out, because they won’t be thinking yet about the thousands of people that are going to be released from the camps in the next few days. I’m sure that will be a topic of conversation at the meeting, after they finish celebrating. How are they going to defend Athens against the refugees from Atlanta?”
“He’s right, Miranda,” Sky said. “Tomorrow night we go, right after dark.”
“But we’ll get shot!”
“Not tomorrow night, we won’t,” Jack reassured her. “Curfew is lifted for the party. But you can bet it’ll be back in place the next night. We’ll take the railroad tracks down to the river and follow the Oconee right to Watkinsville.”
“In the dark?” Miranda’s voice trembled.
“I need you to be strong now, kitten,” Jack said.
“You always say that!” Miranda said. “I’m sick to death of being strong!” She stomped into the house.
“Me, too,” Sky murmured.
Jack put his head on his arms. “Me, too.”
They spent the next day getting ready to leave, loading their backpac
ks, making hobo bags out of sheets to tie at their waists, finding the balance between what they could carry and still move quickly and what they could bear to leave behind. “What about Mom’s wheelbarrow?” Sky asked. “We could carry more.”
“Not over railroad tracks and across the river,” Jack said.
“Across the river?” Sky gaped at him. “You said follow the river, not cross it.”
“What if they’ve taken out the trestle bridge or barricaded it? I would, if I wanted the town to be more secure. We have to be prepared to swim, if we have to.”
“Well, shit. Staying here and being the Welcome Wagon lady for the new guys is looking better and better.”
“Keep picturing your own place, your own bed, your own kitchen, and nobody telling you what to do and how to do it for the first time in four years.”
“Except for you.”
He grinned, hugged her, then went back to packing.
* * *
A new moon, thin and fragile as a child’s fingernail clipping, was rising over the Township as they made their way towards the railroad tracks two blocks from the house. They could already hear people walking, running, riding in the opposite direction towards the meeting place. The heavy trees along the tracks covered with kudzu masked their movements well, and they kept on the wooden planks as best as they could so as to leave no tracks in the gravel. The moonlight glinted on the metal rails, making them easier to follow. They passed close to Lake Herrick in the darkness, and they kept completely silent so close to the homes where most of the citizens lived. They passed just to the west of the university golf course, and they could see the fences erected to keep the crops safe and the scarecrows that stood in the fields. They were grateful that no dogs were likely to sound an alarm as they walked by.
But as they approached the field, Jack saw an armed guard profiled against the night sky. “Wait here,” he whispered to Sky and Miranda, sliding off his pack and the hobo bag at his waist. Sky grabbed his arm and gave him a warning glance, ready to protest. “It’s okay,” he said, pulling away. “Just be quiet and stay back in the trees.”
