Fall of the Cities: Putting Down Roots

by Vance Huxley

  That ended suddenly and brutally.

  “Thank all and every God for that.” A bullet or bullets had broken the window, but not hurt anyone. “Have you any idea why?”

  “None.” Suzie looked understandably shaken. “I’d just finished spraying Merry Christmas on the window with a can of snow and there were bangs and the whole window came in. There were more bangs, shots, and I think I heard a window break down the street.”

  “Keep your curtains shut and the light out and I’ll get it boarded up straight away.” Harold looked down at the glass on the carpet. “Do you want help with this before Sukie gets near it?”

  “No thanks. She’s fast asleep in spite of this.” Suzie paused. “The light wasn’t on, just the Christmas lights around the window. It’s more festive like that.”

  The second and third broken windows also had Christmas lights around them, and Harold sent messages to everyone else who had done the same. The flashing and coloured lights that had been brightening Orchard Close went off one by one, leaving the estate dark again. “Do you think it was the Geeks? Because of Barry and his lasses?” Casper held the hammer he used to fasten up plywood as if hefting his machete.

  “I doubt it. We’ll look in the morning but I don’t fancy going out there just now.” Harold looked at the other two groups hammering away. “It might be Geeks, or Cadillac because we fined him, or just nastiness. Damn! People were just cheering up a bit.”

  “They can still put lights up indoors, and we can find extra curtains so nothing shows?” Casper turned to the boarding again. “Though I really would like to find who it was.”

  The morning showed a scattering of 9 mm brass casings where someone with a handgun had sprayed shots at the windows. They’d even used clumps of rotting curtain to make a rest. Harold made sure the sentries with two-two rifles knew that next time they didn’t wait for a proper target, just shot towards the muzzle flashes. Harold had lectured everyone about wasting ammo so Billy had held his fire, hoping for a decent target.

  *   *   *

  The intense young woman with straight black hair, Gayle, Harold thought, looked apprehensive and ready to burst into tears. “I really am sorry. It’s my fault but I’m not really trained so I never thought about it until all the wounded were screaming and crying and there was nothing to stop the pain.” She took a breath. “Now, with the shooting, I just realised it could happen again.”

  “Slow up and calm down. Have a cuppa first if you like. Gayle, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I came in with Conn just before the big fight. I saw your wounded all patched up and thought that Patricia had all that sorted out.” Gayle sighed and sat down on the armchair Harold was pointing at.

  “Tea or coffee?” Sharyn, in the dining room with Daisy, had heard voices and come through for the hostess bit.

  “Coffee? Please? Black with one sugar?” Gayle sighed again. “I suppose the rest of us will have to learn to manage without coffee soon.”

  “All of us will unless we scavenge or grow enough food. Though everyone should be able to buy a little if they consider coffee a priority.” Harold smiled. “Some people will prefer chocolate or cigarettes.”

  “But will we be able to afford coffee? I suppose it depends on how much rent we pay to make sure you’ve got enough.” Gayle seemed suddenly worried by what she’d said, or maybe the bitter tone it was delivered in. “Sorry, we don’t mind because we’re grateful.”

  “But you live rent free? We explained there’s no arrangement like the Minutemen. Those who can will fight, those who cook or sew or garden do that. What did you do before the mob?” Already before the mob or before the crash were phrases to cover any sort of horror during the last half year or so.

  “But.” She paused. “Someone said that, you know, those fighting would have to be fit so they’d be well fed.” Gayle shuffled in her chair, definitely uneasy.

  “If that was a fighter I’ll have a word because we aren’t allowing that nonsense in here.” Harold grinned. “Berry will slap them and Emmy will hold them while she does. Is that what worried you?”

  “No. Yes, some of it. What happens, how will all the food be divided up if there’s not enough grown? Will those who came last have to buy their own anyway?” Gayle looked up as Sharyn brought her a coffee. “Thank you.”

  “Good question little Bro. How do we sort that out?” Sharyn patted Harold on the back and looked at Gayle. “Sometimes we have to find out there’s a problem before setting him on it.”

  “I never thought about it. Things have been a bit busy.” Harold frowned. “I’d better find out if Hilda has proper lists of what we’ve got, and who we’ve got.” He looked at Sharyn. “You told me I didn’t have to do all this organising crap, Sharyn.”

  “You don’t idiot. You just have to find the right people and delegate.”

  “Good, I delegate you to find the right people.” Harold grinned at Gayle. “You and Gayle.”

  “What? No, nobody will listen to me. Lillian and Janine and Pippa will all be better at it.” Gayle’s worried face brightened. “I’ll be too busy scavenging.”

  “Sharyn will need those names, and will no doubt find some more and then wash her hands of the whole thing.” Harold’s eyes narrowed. “Scavenging? I thought you were helping Patricia with the wounded.”

  Gayle went back to worried. “But you won’t know if the drugs are the right ones, or the equipment, or if it’s the right gas. Ah, right. That’s what I came about.” Gayle took a deep breath. “We need Midazolam or Diazepam so I can make people not care if they are hurt, sort of semi-asleep. Not right out because I’m not trained and might kill someone, but close enough to help their pain?” She glanced at Harold, her face tight. “I should have thought about it.”

  “Why, since you aren’t a medic?” Harold knew because everyone was asked. Patricia, the trainee nurse, repeatedly complained about being well out of her depth when treating hacking and gunshot wounds.

  “I’m a dental trainee. I helped with administering IVs and did some under supervision, and know the theory. If we can find the opiates as well I can take the pain away for the bad ones, if it happens again. I‘m trained to use the dental equipment if we find some that works?” Gayle was back to nervous and apologetic. “I’m sorry, I never thought because my training isn’t for medical, for gunshots?”

  “You didn’t think, I didn’t think, nobody did? I’ve had treatment at a dentist and barely remember any discomfort, yet it never crossed my mind. Just another thing nobody put together.” Harold’s eyes sharpened. “Can you actually fix teeth?”

  “Maybe. I can manage simple fillings or pull a tooth, but I’m not so sure about some of the other work. I was training, not qualified.” Gayle smiled, just a little one. “Mr. Trentham at the college would go crazy.”

  “Mr. Trentham would be proud of you and grateful if he’d got toothache. You might not get any drugs because they’ll be looted, Gayle, but the equipment would be a start.” Harold grinned. “You’ve got out of food rationing and into midnight sneaking around because we’ll probably end up in someone else’s territory.”

  “Have you got something to open a safe, a proper built in one?” Gayle’s smile became a bit more confident. “Even if the rioters stole the ready-use drugs, our dentist at least had a second safe for most of the serious drugs. Too many dentists were being robbed so the extra safe went in, new regulations. If someone broke in they tripped alarms, but also found a really obvious safe, the old one.” She sighed. “If they got into that there wasn’t much, and the police would be getting near. That’s what I was told, anyway.”

  “Let’s hope we can find some dentists nearby in yellow pages, and they haven’t been burned. Then hope that brute force with a variety of implements will open the safe.” Harold mentally berated himself again. Dentists and how to share crops, another two he’d missed; though as yet there weren’t any crops. No toothache either, as far as he knew.

  Gayle’s smile
brightened. “The new safes were fireproof. We might even find laughing gas if the looters missed the gas store, though we’ll need an unburned dental surgery for equipment.”

  Harold smiled. “Now the Army are done and we can scavenge again, be prepared for long cold nights trudging through ruins.” Harold would risk some trespass so he didn’t have to hear Patricia setting bones and cleaning bullet wounds with only booze to dull the pain. Twice was enough for any lifetime.

  So once again he crept through the ruins in the night, eyes and ears peeled, and crawled home just before dawn, shattered. Gayle turned out to be right, and he brought back both drugs and equipment. Carrying the dental equipment and gas bottles through the night while trying to be both quiet and stealthy reminded Harold of those games shows that used to be on TV, though he didn’t fancy the penalties if he failed this game. Harold did get a good night’s sleep eventually so he’d be awake for shopping.

  *   *   *

  The shopping trip to the mart ended up sort of deja vu. “Ten percent tax to use this aisle.” This yob and his two friends had also chosen the meat aisle. He openly waved a machete and both his friends had sheath knives out.

  Harold swung the almost empty Bergen off his back and held it in front of him, then pulled out Sandy’s latest brainwave. “There’s eight of us and we’ve all got these, so no tax.”

  “He’ll stick it up your ass if you keep trying.”

  The youth ignored Emmy and stared at Harold’s weapon. “What the hell is that?” He grinned. “It’s wood so I’ll chop clean through it.”

  “It’s teak so you won’t. Worse than that, you might not think much to the point but it will blind you, or mash your nuts.” Harold grinned. “This is the same size truncheon that the British Bobby used for a hundred years and it’ll lay you out cold.” He wasn’t sure about that but knew the original Bobby’s truncheon wasn’t all that big.

  The length of teak taken from an old banister felt reassuringly heavy for it's size. Only about forty centimetres long with an oval cross-section, the fat knife shape had a taped grip and the other end did have a sort of point. A wooden point that Sandy told them might not break the skin. The recipients, Harold among them, had been dubious. After everyone had smacked an innocent piece of padded timber and realised what sort of blow could be delivered, confidence soared. Being unarmed at the mart when the yobs had blades really had been worrying everyone from Orchard Close.

  Jon gained a lot of credit for volunteering to test Sandy’s theory. He put one of the weapons into each boot, under his jeans, and went through the Army checkpoint long before the rest. As Sandy had told them, the wand didn’t pick up the wood and the weapon was thin enough not to show like a baseball bat would. Then other men carried more weapons through for the women as well, since if anyone had to go to a camp nobody wanted a woman there. Once off the bypass and out of sight of the Army, they’d shared.

  The yob swung and Harold used the Bergen to fend off the machete, then kicked at his shins. Harold jabbed but missed his eye and while the yob ducked Billy and Alfie beat on his machete arm and he dropped the weapon. Harold put a foot on the blade and all three yobs backed off, one of the knifemen with blood trickling down his head. Then they whirled and fled. “Hey it worked. We just kept beating like you said and they backed off.” Billy sounded surprised.

  Harold turned to see what the steady repetition of cripes meant, and found Jon holding his arm where a knife had got him. “Cripes?” Sal smiled as she splashed watered disinfectant on the cut and started bandaging.

  “If I say what I mean you’ll slap me.” Jon hissed as the disinfectant bit. “Cripes, cripes, cripes.”

  Sal finished and then kissed the bandage. “There you go.”

  “I’m sure he hit me in the face.” Jon grinned.

  “Fat chance.” Sal grinned back. “You should buy mistletoe before getting in strife if you expect that sort of thing. Anyway, it’s not that bad because your coat stopped a good bit of it. Harold’s rucksack thing got cut worse.”

  “Only on top.” Harold picked up the machete. “This should stop any more trouble while we shop. Let’s get the meat.”

  “You mean the dog chews.” The complaint was one they all had, the dried meat had to be sawed or snipped into bits and then used in stew to make it palatable. The meat paste had more taste, but the flavours on the tubes were more ambition than an accurate description. Spam turned out to be, remarkably, quite a treat compared to the others. At least Holly’s traps were producing rabbits again, and cat and rat for Lucky the Labrador. Rascal, Hilda’s ancient poodle, would soon run out of dog food and move onto rat.

  After shopping Harold tried to give the machete to the store while paying for his purchases. After several attempts to get a non-standard response Harold decided the voice had to be a recording and gave up. He considered sticking the thing inside his Bergen since those weren’t scanned on the way back, but daren’t risk it. He called out to one of the soldiers on the bypass. “Hey, can we turn this in?”

  “What do you mean?” The soldier raised his rifle. “You can’t bring that on here.”

  “I don’t want to. I found it and want to give the damn thing to the Army.” Harold held the machete out to the side in plain view.

  “Why?”

  “So the bloke I took it off doesn’t have another go?”

  “Hang on.” Hang on meant wait until the soldier shouted to the side and a sergeant came out. After a bit of muttering the sergeant came three steps down the ramp.

  “Are you serious? Chuck it into the ruins.” He pointed at the row of houses on the opposite side of the road to the Mart. “If you step on the access with it we’ll shoot you.”

  “I’ll take it.” At the interruption Harold looked back and up at a mart guard on the nearest the tower. “Poke it through the mesh and prop it against the bottom of the tower. It’ll make a good souvenir.” The man chuckled. “I’ll chuck you a couple of fags?” Harold shrugged and handed the weapon over since he really didn’t want the previous owner getting the damn thing back. The cigarettes really had value since tobacco commanded a high price in the mart. The few smokers in Orchard Close were deep into withdrawal as they gave up. At least the difference between the mart guard and the Army’s reaction was a better subject on the way back than either Jon’s wound or the depressing lack of Christmas treats for sale. There weren’t even any Christmas crackers or trimmings!

  *   *   *

  When Harold’s shoppers arrived home, Kabir had already had a beer and bought a crate with coupons though he left soon after as his group had set off earlier this time. The GOFS ‘soldier’ already knew about machetes inside the mart. “We’ve been wondering about running a convoy along the border between the Hot Rods and the Murphy’s, a group we’ve come across nearer the city centre. There’s a decent road that’s their border so really doesn’t belong to either. Then we could go armed.”

  “Will the two gangs allow it?” Harold though about what he’d seen of Cadillac and didn’t believe the gang boss would like armed convoys on his borders.

  “They aren’t exactly friends with each other so it’ll only be one that shoots, and the other might back us up then. We’ll let both know we come in peace.” He grinned. “But shoot to kill.” Kabir had seen the paintwork on the minibus. “If I’m not here next time, that’s what we’ve done. If I’m back the time after that, we got shot up and won’t be trying again.”

  “Maybe you can arrange something at the big meeting with Cadillac?” Harold wondered if that had been a Caddi windup, or if the Hot Rod boss really wanted a meeting.

  “Yeah. He says you’ll be there.”

  “That depends on where there is.” Harold scowled. “I’m not keen on anywhere Cadillac picks because we had some strife. He might want payback.”

  “Everyone’s had strife with Cadillac but Gofannon reckons the Hot Rods don’t want a war with any of us. Not until Cadillac is sure the rest won’t join in
to slap him down, so some sort of proper treaty would be handy. How about that traffic island up the road for a meeting place? It’s a straight run to there for any of us including the Geek Freeks if you give them safe passage along your road.” Kabir shrugged. “It’s also near enough the Army so nobody will start a war, and far enough so a couple of shots and carrying guns will be no problem.”

  “A couple of shots?”

  Kabir grinned. “Didn’t you know? Cadillac reckons he wants to see you shoot, because he can’t decide if you wounded his blokes on purpose or missed.” He sat forward a bit. “Can you shoot?”

  Harold laughed. “Make sure you come to the party, and stick to the dress code.”

  “Oh yes.” Kabir touched his knife hilt. “With Caddi there, I’ll probably go over the top to be on the safe side.”

  *   *   *

  “We wish you a Merry Christmas.” The Orchard Close Christmas Eve carol singers were definitely dedicated because despite the cold the women were only wearing tight jumpers, jeans and trainers as well as tinsel and a selection of greenery. The clothing worked and after giving the soldiers a twirl the six of them were allowed to take hot chips and beer up without a search, though the contraband had to be confiscated by a grinning pair of privates. The sergeant made sure the squaddies refused the waved mistletoe but didn’t mind a bit of repartee. When the six retreated, hi-fiving, sarge relaxed enough to allow all the soldiers to wave.

  The dance that evening included Christmas music from the TV though the picture faced the wall, and someone turned the sound off whenever a statement tried to tell them all how lucky they were. After a monotonous onslaught of assurances followed by examples of violent suppression of riots, nobody trusted the TV any more. MP4 players filled in the gaps as everyone found either festive or dance numbers in their stored music. The first few were fast, but soon the mood quietened, with more slow numbers.

  The girl club had put on their party frocks, but that wild edge from Halloween and Guy Fawkes had gone. “We’re all a bit down.” Liz claimed her wimp dance early, allegedly before the rush. “Not me of course because I’m a callous bitch, but the rest are. This is the first Christmas for those who lost someone in the crash so it’s still hurting, and tomorrow will be rough. We’ve banned serious drinking because soused and sobbing revellers doesn’t help the mood. One or two have gone the other way and decided that now might be the time to move on.” She sniggered. “As you might find out.”