Praying for War: The Collin War Chronicles

by W. C. Hoffman

  Pastor Pendell glanced between the two men but didn’t interrupt.

  Collin shrugged and took a big bite of the mixed vegetables. He grunted in pleasure. “These are great.”

  After finishing his bite Collin said, “During our walk, you mentioned you guys mostly raised feed crops across the river, right?”

  “This is true,” said Pastor Pendell.

  “So are these veggies canned or packaged military food? They taste so fresh. Please tell me my physical state hasn’t declined that much?”

  Kobyashi smiled. “Fresh as can be, my friend.”

  “Indeed. We operate several greenhouses and indoor gardening systems. Setup with Koby’s expertise,” said Pastor Pendell.

  Kobyashi raised his hand and nodded several times, as if he was accepting accolades from a large audience.

  “How does that work?” Collin asked, genuinely curious.

  “Have you ever heard of hydroponics or aquaponics?” Kobyashi said.

  “Perhaps in school,” Collin said with caution. He had a vague sense that his roommate in college had been quite the hydroponics enthusiast.

  Kobyashi chuckled. “Well, it’s not all about growing weed. No sir, we have a very efficient and productive system that allows us to grow a safe, secure, and reliable supply of food. We actually run a surplus so we do a lot of canning. Some of the excess goes to the livestock. They’re quite spoiled compared to...you know, before.”

  Kobyashi went back to his food. Any time the past was brought up people seemed to fade away, unable or unwilling to talk about it.

  “I hate to bring the conversation around to business, but when you’re all filled up, I’d like to invite you to our Council meeting. We already had one planned for this evening and I think I can speak for everyone when I say we are hoping you’d like to be our guest of honor,” said Pastor Pendell.

  Just then, the lights flickered. They cut out for a moment and then came back on. No one appeared to be startled or concerned.

  “You still haven’t resolved that issue?” said Logan, staring hard at Kobyashi.

  “I’ve been too busy with your mom,” Koby shot back.

  Seeing the confusion on Collin’s face, Dr. Horner said, “That was a power bump, nothing too serious. But they’ve been occurring more often and should be taken care of.” She glanced at Koby.

  “Power bump? Not sure I’ve ever heard that before,” Collin said.

  “It’s basically a temporary power outage. I need to re-optimize the system,” said Kobyashi.

  “I’m sure Koby will deal with this right away,” Pastor Pendell said. “Now, back to the Council meeting. Would you consider being our guest of honor?”

  Dr. Horner cut in and leaned forward over the table. “How are you feeling?”

  Collin thought for a moment. “I feel a little weak and there’s some soreness, but other than that I feel good. I’m actually not sure I’ll be able to get to bed on time tonight.” He smiled.

  “A sixteen year-long nap will do that to a guy,” said Major Logan.

  “Yeah, about that...” Collin said, turning to the doctor. “How is it I was out for so long?”

  “We don’t know too much about it,” Dr. Horner said. “Think of it like you were in a coma, even though it wasn’t the same thing exactly. Your body was still functioning, but your brain kind of switched off, much like a coma. We fed and watered you with an IV and used electric therapy to help you retain muscle mass,” she said. “Luckily, you could breathe on your own which made things easier. Actually, you’ve been lucky. From what I heard, you retained an exceptional level of motor skill.”

  “Everyone keeps telling me I’m lucky.” He supposed he felt lucky, if uneasy. Less than an hour ago, men tried to kill him, only to lose their lives. Their blood still stained his pants and boots. “What happened...to the world?”

  “Clearly it went to shit,” said Major Logan with a frown.

  “We can discuss that later,” Pastor Pendell said, cutting in. “As you can imagine, it’s quite a long story with a lot of moving pieces. At the Council meeting tonight, you’ll get a good overview of where we are as a community though.”

  “Okay,” said Collin. Someone at another table laughed, triggering a flash of memory. Trees, a small wooden table, a young boy running by. It faded away as fast as it had come. He grasped at it in his mind, willing the memory to come back, to unfold itself in detail. But it was gone.

  “Collin?” said Dr. Horner.

  He looked up at her.

  “Doris asked you a question,” she said.

  He turned the other way and saw Doris leaning over his shoulder. She had a concerned look on his face.

  “I’m sorry, Doris. What did you say?”

  “It’s nothing really. I just asked if you enjoyed dinner?” Her eyes grew wide with anticipation.

  Collin smiled and leaned back, gesturing at his tray, which was empty.

  “It was lovely, Doris. Thank you very much.”

  She blushed and smiled. “I’m happy you enjoyed it.”

  “In fact, if it’s possible, I wouldn’t mind some more of those vegetables.”

  “Of course, of course, right this way.”

  Collin picked up his tray and followed her over to the serving station.

  Chapter Five

  In a spare bedroom being used as a hydroponic garden, Gary Kobyashi tended to his produce. Despite being low-maintenance, it was part of his early morning routine. And being that it was Sunday, he wanted to get some of his chores done before church.

  In this particular room, he grew a several types of lettuce and a large row of spinach. Koby bobbed his head as music played in the background. Everything looked to be in order as usual. His system had been refined over the long years since the fever outbreak.

  Journey’s hit song, “Don’t Stop Believing,” started blaring from his living room record player, just one of the many vinyl albums in his collection. They were the last remnants of his high school and college years, and he still loved them. Perhaps now more than ever.

  “Just a city boy,” he sang. “Born and raised in south Detroit.”

  He danced a little as he sang.

  “He took the midnight train going-”

  The music stopped.

  He stopped dancing. “What the shit?”

  He listened carefully for anyone in his house who may have turned off the tunes.

  “Hello?” he asked as he strolled over to the door and peeked his head into the hallway, half-expecting to see someone.

  He didn’t see anyone. Koby felt relieved no one heard him singing; he wasn’t a big believer in torture, but he felt slightly deflated that apparently no one had come to visit him.

  He ducked back into the gardening room, looked around, and realized the water pumps in the room, which kept the hydroponic system circulating, had also stopped. Hence the silence. He groaned in frustration.

  “Goddamn dam,” he muttered.

  The town had been suffering from power bumps, or brief outages, for a couple of weeks. Koby was the most technically knowledgeable person in town, so the dam fell under his management. He’d read a multitude of massive, painfully boring manuals to learn more about how the dam worked. It helped, but like all quality leaders, Koby relied heavily on his crew to fill in his knowledge gaps. His crew consisted of a pair of technicians from the original crew who worked at the dam before the fever. Between the three of them, maintenance was straight forward, but none of them had been able to nail down the root cause of the power bumps.

  It wasn’t a water flow or generator issue, so they worked their way down the line and narrowed it down to the electrical systems. Currently, Koby and his crew were slowly working their way through, searching for the problem. It was tedious work.

  Koby walked down the hall to check on the record and make sure it hadn’t been scratched when the power died. He noticed the lights on his digital clock had gone out, so he’d have to reset that. Doris, the cafete
ria manager and his close friend, told him more than once over the years to get something old fashioned. It wasn’t his style so he’d resisted, but he couldn’t help but think she was on to something.

  He groaned. “Well, I guess I know what I’m doing today,” he grumbled.

  The record was still unscathed. He pulled it off the spindle and carefully slid it into its paper sleeve before tucking it back into the large album cover. He smiled at his collection of records, which filled an oak shelf he built specifically to hold his collection of more than two hundred albums.

  “Possibly the finest collection left in the world,” he said, as he replaced the Journey album back in its place.

  Koby went to the kitchen to fill a thermos with coffee. It was likely to be a long day at the Goshen dam, so he started a fresh brew. His kitchen featured a large gas stove, so he could light it without needing electricity. While the water heated up, he walked into what would normally be the front room. In Koby’s house, it was equal parts workroom and parts collection.

  Some townsfolk thought it was chaotic, but to Koby it was glorious.

  He picked up his bag of tools and went back to the kitchen to wait for the water to finish.

  Once the kettle started its slow build to a piercing whistle, he turned off the heat and poured the water slowly through the coffee filter on top of the thermos.

  “Ready to rock hard,” Koby muttered.

  If he was lucky, his technicians Mark and Paul would already be fixing whatever problem was ailing the aging dam. He’d feel much better when they finally found the main problem and fixed it. The dam had begun to consume a lot of his work time. With managing the town’s gardens and other projects, he was a busy man.

  Koby shouldered his tool bag and walked out of his house, heading toward the dam. He briefly thought about the new guy, Collin, and wondered what he was doing. Most newcomers found the interior of the dam to be mesmerizing; he would have to show Collin the inner workings one day. Koby enjoyed giving people a firsthand look at the things he managed; it gave him a sense of pride. He pushed those thoughts aside and mulled over possible solutions for the dam’s current problem.

  Since the dam could easily produce more electricity than the town needed, they only needed to keep one of its five generators in operation. Most of the problems cropped up in the summer or during extremely cold winters. Naturally, on hot summer days, people turned on their air conditioning and in the winter, heaters ran around the clock.

  Age had been kind to the dam and Goshen as a whole. Thankfully, the electrical and water management systems didn’t rely on a computer to control them. All of that was pleasantly old-school. Switches, wires, levers, cranks, gears, and pulleys held tight and functioned without the need for fragile and temperamental hardware or software controls. Nevertheless, as the dam neared its centennial birthday, it seemed to need more attention.

  Coming out of the Great Depression, Goshen had commissioned the dam’s construction with the assistance of the state and federal governments. Most of the funding came from President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” legislation. The dam was large enough to be able to provide electricity for most of Montana and parts of north Idaho. Koby had seen construction and dedication photos.

  It was a big deal back in the day, providing thousands of jobs, and hope for people living in a small out-of-the-way community. He was always impressed by what people had done in the first half of the twentieth century, when America was building its infrastructure. The ambition, the national pride, the dedication, and the sense of working together to improve everyone’s lives were inspiring.

  Decades before the fever brought the world to its knees, people had sounded the warning bells about the deteriorating state of the country’s infrastructure. They were lucky Goshen dedicated money to maintaining the dam as well as they had, because it still ran, and didn’t seem to require the kind of major construction they were wholly unprepared to provide.

  It’s a fussy child, Koby thought. But it’s my fussy child.

  He was startled when Pastor Pendell fell into step beside him and said, “Good afternoon!”

  “Fuck me sideways!”

  “I beg your pardon,” Pastor Pendell said sternly.

  “You startled me, pastor.” Koby patted his chest to calm his racing heart.

  “My apologies. You did appear to be deep in thought.” Pastor Pendell rubbed his chin as he followed Koby. “It appears you’re headed to the dam. Am I right?”

  “Do dogs piss on brick walls?” Koby said, not expecting an answer.

  Pastor Pendell looked at him sideways, refusing to partake in the current tone of the conversation.

  “Well, I wanted to give you these,” he said, removing a set of keys from his front pocket. He held them up and looked at them, dangling from his crooked old fingers. “I’ve held on to these for far too long. I know you and your technicians only have one set between the three of you. So these should come in handy.”

  Koby glanced at the keys. They appeared to be a set of keys for the dam. They were identical to the set his team already had. But this was only a partial set. Koby had seen Pastor Pendell’s keys for the dam, and looking at what was before him, he realized there was at least one key missing.

  “Why now, after all this time?” Koby asked, suspicious.

  “When you first came to us, I wasn’t sure we could trust you. Then it was my own sins which led me to cling to them.” Pastor Pendell began walking slowly in the direction Koby had been heading.

  “Your sins?”

  Pastor Pendell rubbed his chin. “Lord knows I’ve spent many an hour asking for forgiveness for my sins,” he said with a sigh. “I like to help people, to feel needed. And my own pride and need for attention kept these in my possession longer than necessary, rather than giving them to their rightful caretaker - you.”

  “I see...” Koby said, although he wasn’t really sure if he did.

  Did micro-managing qualify as a sin?

  In either case, he was happy to receive another set of keys. If anything happened to the originals, it’d be less of a crisis.

  The pastor still hadn’t handed them over.

  Pastor Pendell didn’t say anything for a minute or two as they continued walking towards the dam.

  “It’s beautiful in its inanimate strength isn’t it?” he said finally.

  Koby followed the pastor’s gaze up to the dam. It towered before them, straddling the riverbanks; water churning at its base threw up a large cloud of mist that rained down on the rocks and vegetation lining both sides. Several large rocks jutted out from the riverbank on Goshen’s side.

  During the summer, they were popular with rebellious youth who loved to jump off of them into the water below. It was dangerous because the water was so rough, especially if the spillway was active. Goshen had already lost a young couple, years ago; who drowned after the water pressure wedged them under the edge of a boulder deep underwater.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Living near the dam is what I imagine it would be like to live near Mount Rushmore,” Pastor Pendell said.

  “She’s an oldie, but a goodie.” Koby looked at the man beside him. The pastor was acting strange.

  “We’re lucky to have her. And grateful too,” Pastor Pendell said. “Grateful for her and you too.”

  “Me?”

  “Of course. Without you, our gardening program wouldn’t have turned out to be a smashing success. And you keep her running,” Pastor Pendell said, gesturing at the dam. He slowed his pace.

  Koby liked feeling appreciated, but he didn’t see the things he’d done as special or remarkable. Most of the time, he felt like he was winging it. It was luck, more than anything that not everything he worked on failed.

  “Will you be joining me and the boys at the dam?” Koby asked.

  No response.

  Koby turned and saw Pastor Pendell about fifteen feet behind him, just staring at the dam. The look on the man’s face was unusual.
>
  “Pastor?” Koby waited for him to catch up but he didn’t move. “Hello?”

  The man stood staring at the dam. It was an unsettling sight.

  “Earth to Pastor Pendell. Do you copy?” Koby asked loudly, hoping to get the man’s attention.

  Pastor Pendell blinked a few times and looked at Koby.

  “Yes?”

  “Um...Are you coming with me?”

  “I’ve been thinking-”

  “A dangerous past time,” Koby said with a smirk.

  “Indeed.”

  They both chuckled. Pastor Pendell approached Koby, who waited politely for him to catch up.

  “I trust you,” Pastor Pendell said, placing his hand on Koby’s shoulder.

  “Okay?”

  “I’m going to be honest with you. When it comes to the dam, I’m about as useful a four-cornered triangle.”

  Koby smiled.

  “There’s no reason for me to go there with you. Now or ever,” Pastor Pendell said. “Plus, I have to go prepare for today’s service.”

  “Okay?” Koby repeated. He had no idea where the pastor was going with this, but he was starting to feel uncomfortable, especially with the man’s hand on his shoulder.

  Pastor Pendell pulled the keys from his pocket again. Koby hadn’t seen him slip them back in his pocket. It was as if the pastor was still struggling with whatever personal demons made him unwilling to part with the small pieces of metal. They tinkled lightly in the breeze, like a miniature set of chimes.

  Koby held his hand out to help the pastor. The man’s eyes flicked from the keys to Koby’s hand and back.

  With seemingly great effort, Pastor Pendell placed the keys in Koby’s hand. “What I’m saying is...”

  Koby quickly closed his hand around the keys and shoved them in his pocket.

  “We’ve been blessed with power, in the literal sense. I don’t know what has happened the world over, but I imagine most do not have electricity the way we do. I was protective of it and didn’t fully trust you. Now I do. You have earned the trust and respect of not just me, but the whole of Goshen.”