by Vance Huxley
He entered a square, plain room, empty except for a table at one side in front of a blank glass panel. As the TV had instructed, Harold put all his bags on the table then stood on a red square to be scanned. Every item had been in a tight mesh bag with a bar code, or had a bar code stamped directly onto it. The beets and swedes had actually been individually stamped. This whole setup spoke of real planning, not a hurried stopgap and Harold hoped that included the bar codes being non-toxic.
Moments later a bored voice told him how many coupons were needed, and warned him that smudged or damaged coupons would be impounded and if he offered forged coupons he would be arrested. Harold put the completed coupons into the slot and used the ink pad to put his thumbprint on enough of the rest to pay. The woman or tape didn’t confirm that the coupons were acceptable. The door in the wall opposite the entrance clicked open, which seemed a big enough hint to Harold. Beyond that door he found a smaller room. As soon as he entered the door behind Harold clicked shut, the one in front opened and he went outside.
The man by the door eyed Harold’s size and hefted a baseball bat, hesitating. Harold spoke first. “Are you waiting for someone?” Before the man could answer another door clicked open and Harold looked past him. “Hi, Alfie.”
“Hi, Harold. Is there a problem?” Alfie spoke from behind the man, who suddenly looked very nervous.
“No, this bloke is waiting for someone.” Harold looked back at the man. “The next seven out of each of these doors are with us, mate, so you’re at the wrong door.”
“Seven? Ah, right. I’ll just, er, wait over there?” The ragged man moved off and leant on the wall away from the line of doors.
Alfie grinned and came over, then the two of them stood away from the exit doors and waited. It took a while, but eventually the whole party had paid and they headed for the bypass.
“Single file and hand over your ID. Hands in plain view.”
Harold went first. “We’ve just been shopping. We did all this to get here.”
“Just checking for personal weapons. Orders.” Harold had opened his mouth to point out the wand wouldn’t work because there were metal items in the packs, and shut it. Orders meant no argument would work. A wand passed over Harold but not the pack and his ID went over a scanner. “Yeah. Came from Orchard Close this morning. All clear.”
“What if I hadn’t come along the bypass this morning?”
“Strip search and empty the packs so you can’t smuggle weaponry.”
“Fair enough. The next fifteen are with me.”
“Still got to check. Next.” The squaddie sounded bored, but the ones with rifles were alert.
* * *
The walk back didn’t seem as long, even loaded down, since everyone spent the time discussing the visit. The level of paranoia shown by the mart, the weapons in the yard and inside the Mart, and the lack of variety in the goods for sale were the main subjects. Any attempts to talk to a group and several singles and couples walking towards the mart were met with silence. Nobody else wanted to talk to a large group of strangers. As Harold’s shoppers came towards the access road down to Orchard Close another large group was heading towards them, away from the checkpoint.
“Which enclave are they from?”
“I’m not psychic, Liz. Perhaps we should wait until we get a chance to talk to that bloke by those cars wearing a machete?” Harold wasn’t too happy, because wearing a machete openly like that probably meant another guardian. “First we’ll find out just how long it’ll take to pass through this checkpoint.”
“Hello Soldier Boy. Head straight on down.” Sarge gave Harold a little smile. “Unless you found an arms dealer on the bypass?”
Harold smiled back, since the soldiers were still lining the route. “No, but we could do with one at the other end. Some of the shoppers who don’t come along here are carrying knives in the shop.”
Sarge curled a lip. “Self-defence weapons are allowed there as long as they aren’t missile weapons, or so I am told. Just don’t bring them onto here.” Harold flinched slightly because that meant the gangs near the marts would eventually be shopping with machetes. “Single file, and go straight through the gap. If you arrive another time when we’re passing someone through, stay well back.”
“Will do. Are you here tonight?”
“Yes, for my sins. Though the mart will be shut then.” Harold hadn’t meant that, as Sarge well knew. Though neither were going to mention the dish of hot chips that would be coming up the access road later because fraternisation was banned. Sarge beckoned Harold a little further from the rest. “You’ll get a visit soon, to tell you to stay quiet and not interfere while the Army deal with the bodies in the ruins. In my opinion you should keep all your women out of sight.”
“Why? You Army types seem to appreciate a smile and a wave from the girl club.” Harold grinned and Sarge smiled a little because that was true.
“It isn’t the soldiers. They’ll be bringing work gangs to do the dirty jobs and you don’t want them seeing your women. We’re talking rapists, murderers, pedophiles, all the scum from the jails and any picked up since. Personally I’d have shot most of them but the government is using them for clearing bodies and crappy jobs like that.” Sarge kept his voice down. “If you see a bloke dressed in orange coming towards your place, stick an arrow in him.”
“What, even if he’s unarmed?”
“The Army will be trying to shoot him so don’t let the bastard use your people as cover. We’ve been told it’ll be for a few days and then you can go into the ruins.” Orchard Close residents had been banned from the ruins for the last fortnight. Sarge shrugged. “Not that there’ll be much to scavenge now, though you might find some cans and sealed jars.”
Harold was sure his people could find something useful in there. The Army instructions to keep out had been frustrating despite all the bodies laid about. Everyone knew that useful food and clothes were rotting since the houses were broken open, and rodents and birds would get in as well. Sarge seemed in a good mood, so Harold stayed watching the rest file through. “Who are that lot, the ones who just came through?”
“I can’t tell you who your neighbours are two and a half miles that way.” Sarge pointed straight over Orchard Close into the city. “Maybe that bloke down there can tell you more?”
“Cheers. See you.” Harold followed Emmy through the sandbags, smiling quietly. Sarge had just told him where the other enclave was, even if the man waiting with Casper turned out bashful.
* * *
“Hi Harold. These are the neighbours.” Casper had come out to meet Harold, wearing a machete but smiling. “That lot just leaving belong to him, and brought those.” There were three more cars behind the first. “What was shopping like?”
“Not very exciting, except the mart lets people take knives inside.” He turned to the man. “I hope a couple of your lot can handle themselves or they’ll get robbed.”
“There’s three men along who won’t take any crap, though I don’t like the idea of knives.” He frowned. “Are they robbing everyone?”
“Not if they belong to a gang. Are you a gang?” Harold assumed an enclave at least simply because of the big, almost new cars and the machete.
The man leaning against the big 4X4 looked embarrassed. “We are the Gods of Fire and Steel. It sounds stupid put like that, but someone suggested computer names as gang names. The ones we used for signing on to play games?” He shrugged. “Then we found a proper smith and since we’d already got a Vulcan and a Gofannon and they’re old Gods, he’s picked Wayland. All the other gangs are called weird names so we made one up. Otherwise they don’t take you seriously.”
“They take the Gods of Fire and Steel seriously?” Harold stared, unsure if this bloke was winding him up.
“Have you met the Hot Rods, the Geek Freeks, or the Barbie Girls yet? Anyway it’s Gods of Fire and Steel so we can just say GOFS.” The man sighed. “I’ve got to choos
e between Hephaestus and Brokkr, unless I can find another God of Smiths.”
Casper looked him over. “You look Asian. How about Amatsumara? There’s a T in the spelling and it’s supposed to be three words, but he’s the Japanese God of smiths?” He smiled. “Don’t look like that. I was interested in how those swords were made at one time. Nobody here will know how to spell it anyway.”
“Amatsumara, that’ll get turned into Karma Sutra. Anyway, my grandad was Indian, not Japanese. There again it might be better than the others because I’ll get a lot of piss-taking with Hephaestus, it sounds like disease.” He put out a hand. “I’m Kabir at the moment, and pleased to meet a civilised bloke.”
“Casper.” Casper shook and sniggered. “Civilised and bloke are both up for discussion. Have your gang got a problem with gays?”
“No, but I don’t think we’ve got any. There’s a lot of gays, the blokes, who’ve formed a gang somewhere in the city, and a lot of the Barbie Girls are dykes. I don’t care either way, but some do.” Kabir curled a lip. “Have you met Cadillac yet?”
Harold frowned and shook his head. “No, but I’m supposed to have a visit according to someone called Cooper.”
“Short for Mini Cooper, which makes a name like Brokkr a lot less weird. Your people were lucky to find so many decent houses to live in after that mob came through.” Kabir looked back at the charred ruins bordering Orchard Close. “Hang on, you were on TV. You were here when they arrived?”
“Maybe we should go in there and have a cuppa.” Harold pointed back to the Orchard Close access road. “As long as nobody nicks your car?”
“Really? I can come inside?” He hesitated. “What are the rules in there?”
Casper smiled happily. “There aren’t many. Be polite, no foul language, don’t handle anyone who doesn’t volunteer, and don’t steal.” He paused. “You’d better leave that at the door.” Casper pointed at the machete.
“No swearing or groping, are you lot religious? Never mind, I’ll lock up the motors and follow?” At Harold’s nod, Kabir took out a set of car keys and Casper followed Harold round the corner and up to the gates.
“Are you sure we should let him in, Harold?”
“No, but we’ll only take him into one of the houses near the entrance, then we’ll pump him for information since he seems chatty. What was the bit about the machete? Someone will stick a crossbow bolt in him if he starts.” Harold led the way through the gap in the barricade, already opened for the rest of the shoppers.
“That was just to make a point really. Not only that but now the danger is past we haven’t got many who will do that, you know, shoot someone deliberately.” Casper sighed. “Some of the girls, and blokes for that matter, are having a bad time remembering what happened and what they did.”
That startled Harold, then he realised he should have known it would happen. Killing people really wasn’t normal, even if some maniac is closing in with murder in mind. “Who can we rely on? Just a best guess.”
“Emmy because she really won’t let anyone take a second shot at her. Holly because of Brodie and Gabriela, I reckon, and Suzie because of her sister being killed. Possibly Gayle because she was nearly caught once, and Bess of course.” Casper frowned. “I’ll do it, but not too many of the men are up for a fight either though you can count on Alfie after Toby died. Rob won’t unless Susan is threatened because that wound really shook him up. Finn will shoot though he’s still wounded and Seth I reckon. Jon and Billy both seem solid in spite of only being eighteen and seventeen. Bernie maybe?” Casper shrugged. “A lot just want to forget the whole thing if possible.”
Harold winced because Alfie was only fifteen, yet he really was angry over Toby dying. “A lot are still wounded, men and women, so they still might firm up. We’ll talk about who to rely on later, but right now let’s get a pint down this bloke and be his best friends ever. Nip and get your shotgun, and bring me a pistol, and get either Holly or Emmy to bring a crossbow and a pistol. Just to make a point.” Harold thought quickly. “Make sure you don’t mention where the beer came from.” The price of beer in the mart had been a nasty surprise, and would make Berry and her Dad prime targets for kidnapping.
“I’ll prime the women and get the weapons while you meet and greet. Use number three. There’s nobody living there but we put a blow heater in the front room to warm it up if the guards needed to thaw out later in the winter.” Casper held out a hand. “Give me that pack and I’ll send it up to your house.”
“Take it to Matthew’s house, please. The rest will be there to sort out what we’ve brought but don’t get excited.” Harold turned to greet Kabir. “Come in, then we can close the gate.” As soon as the man came inside the old car drove across the gap, and the driver took out the keys. Kabir frowned at the car and Harold shrugged. “We’re working on it.”
“Where do I leave this?” Kabir indicated his machete. “What about my knife?” The man tensed a bit at that. He probably didn’t fancy being completely unarmed.
“Keep your knife but don’t do anything stupid.” Harry pointed up at the house nearby, where Bernie stood at the open window with a crossbow. “You’ll be searched because we worry about guns.” Harold had only just thought about that when he remembered Bernie had a handgun tucked out of sight as a backup.
“All right, though I left mine in the motor. I suppose we’ll get rules organised once we get more visitors.” Kabir stood and held his hands up while Harold searched him well enough to find any gun without getting personal. That was easy since under his thick jacket the man only wore a tee and jeans.
After a beer, and being introduced to Emmy, Kabir relaxed enough to let them know roughly where the boundaries with his neighbours ran. Though he wouldn’t say just where the GOFS themselves lived. The boundaries were rough because they didn’t actually meet, so there were unclaimed sections. The GOFS were doing what Harold had been told the Hot Rods did. They offered protection to isolated clumps of people living in their area, and those people supplied coupons or goods.
After the naming thing came up again, Emmy sniggered. “My brother was into that, Gods and all that stuff, when he was looking for his roots. He looked into becoming Rastafari but that’s no good for you, though maybe Ogou, the Haitian spirit of ironworking, would work?”
“Right, thanks, maybe. Are all the women armed like you or are you different? Special?” Kabir seemed puzzled by Emmy having weapons. The looks at Harold and Emmy made clear what different and special meant and Emmy laughed.
“In his dreams.” She sobered and gave Harold a critical once-over. “Maybe, but I’m still not ready for any of that nonsense. A lot of women aren’t ready after what happened and who we lost. We carry machetes in case some oik won’t wait until we are ready.” Emmy delivered the last part with a scowl.
Kabir flinched at her tone, and looked over Emmy’s weaponry again. “Bloody hell, that lot should do it. You’d fit in well with the Barbie Girls, except you seem to like blokes.”
“I like polite blokes, what about your women?” Kabir looked decidedly uncomfortable about that, and moved the subject onto beer and general state of the city. Chatty though he seemed, Kabir seemed cagey about the GOFS women and Harold didn’t think they were armed.
At least three times Emmy bit off saying Soldier Boy so she’d had her instructions. That was while describing the battle between the mobs and the Army, and how near Orchard Close came to being swamped. Kabir confirmed that everywhere else he’d heard about where the mobs had gone had ended up wrecked and picked clean, so Orchard Close really were lucky.
The GOFS hadn’t been really well organised at that time, and were just lucky the juggernaut missed the place they’d forted up. They’d found a better place since, but he still didn’t think it would have held out. Kabir worried about disease rather than violence at the moment because the GOFS were finding a lot of corpses. The mobs left plenty of evidence of their passing, bodies as well as destruction, and the GOFS were havi
ng to look through them to find any weapons. At least the houses nearest to Orchard Close had burned fiercely enough to cremate anyone in there.
Bernie came in just over four hours later to report Kabir’s group coming back and everyone escorted Kabir to the gate, still talking. “You really haven’t got a gang name?” He’d asked at least five times. “Some of them will think you aren’t a proper gang and they’ll take liberties.” He grinned at Emmy. “Until they meet you. I’ll tell the others you’re Orchard Close and they can buy some really good beer. We’d prefer to trade if possible rather than use coupons?”
“We’ll think about it. Call in for a beer the next time, in a fortnight.” Harold shook Kabir’s hand, as did Casper and Emmy. Then Casper escorted Kabir out of the gate.
* * *
A gloomy group sorted out the groceries, because they’d been told about prices and now they were assessing the quality. They weren’t pleased to learn about the gangs surrounding Orchard Close either because the TV claimed to have smashed them. At least the prospect of scavenging again after the bodies were gone cheered a few up. A weary Harold trudged up the road to home and a small whirlwind engulfed him as the door opened.
“Coco Pops! Uncle-Harry has brought Coco Pops!” Five year old Daisy did her best to open Harold’s pack as he tried to get inside and take his coat off.
“Not until tomorrow, for breakfast. Scoot.” Her Mum, Harold’s sister Sharyn, scooted Daisy away. “Let me get these unpacked and let Uncle-Harold have a cuppa.”
“Drawing first. You owe me big-time for no drawing this morning.”
Harold mouthed “big-time” over Daisy’s head as she tried to tug him away towards her crayons and colouring books. Sharyn mouthed “Hazel,” the fourteen-year old orphan living with them. Then he allowed Daisy to drag him away for a colouring session. At least this one didn’t include drawing, which wasn’t Harold’s strong point.
