“It’s just us,” I called loudly. I decided that it was probably alright to lower my hands.
“We’ll have to search you two and ensure you don’t have any open sores, which are an indication of radiation sickness, and worse. After that, you can come in, get introduced to everyone and determine if you want to stay or if you’re just visiting Virden. Hold on.” There were several loud clangs as the locks were thrown to open the gate.
I was surprised when the town’s gate opened about fifty feet to my right, far to the side of where I’d expected it to be since the road led right up to the wall. Three people dressed like scavengers came out from the gate and two of them had shotguns that they aimed right at us. The men wore heavy coveralls and had long trench coats to help with the acid rain. They wore military style gas masks and all had what looked to be firefighter helmets on, which was a wise choice since the helmet could protect against both rain and blunt force trauma.
The unarmed man came up to me and said, “I need both of you to strip naked.” I started to object, but he sighed and held his hands up to stop me. Clearly this wasn’t the first time that he’d encountered people unwilling to get naked in front of strangers. “Look,” he said, “Neither of you has anything that we haven’t seen a thousand times. We need to ensure that you’re not bringing any obvious diseases into our community. Either you strip and let us examine you, or you guys can continue on your way to wherever you’re headed.”
“It’s okay, Charlie,” my wife said to me. “I can handle it. We need a safe place to stay and if this is the price I have to pay, then so be it.” She didn’t even wait for my answer before she shrugged out of her backpack to let it slide to the ground and began unzipping her rain jacket.
Before long, both of us stood stark naked in the chilly air. The only exception was our masks, which they’d allowed us to retain in position over our mouths and noses. The man inspecting us had each of us bend over to expose the area between our ass cheeks and then I had to lift my scrotum up for his scrutiny while Becca was forced to raise each breast up so he could ensure there were no sores hidden underneath along the creases of her skin.
When he was satisfied, he said, “Alright, you passed. You can put your clothes back on. Welcome to Virden. I hope you enjoy your stay, but let me warn you right now; if you aren’t a contributing member of the community, you will be asked to leave and not return. Is that understood?” We both nodded that we understood the terms of our admittance into the town.
We rushed to pull our clothing back on as a storm blew in rapidly from the west. Just as we entered the main gate of Virden it began to rain. The dark sludge fell from the sky and we couldn’t see beyond a couple of feet in front of our hands. The men quickly swung the gate back into place and shuffled off to their protected watch positions.
As soon as we passed through, a girl yelled, “Come on, this way! We’ll get under the pharmacy’s awning.” She wore a large rubber army poncho and also carried an umbrella to further retard the rain’s ability to reach her. We ran behind her as she made her way to the front of the town’s pharmacy less than a block from the town’s walls. We ducked under the wide striped awning, both of us unsure what to make of our guide.
She closed the umbrella and leaned it against the building’s brick wall pulling the hood off of her head to reveal clean, straight blonde hair. Her eyes crinkled as she smiled behind the mask she wore. “My name is Samantha, Sam. Welcome to Virden,” she said.
“Hi Samantha. I’m Chuck, this is my wife, Rebecca,” I said as I indicated Becca.
Sam gave us both a quick once over with her eyes. “Have you guys been on the road very long?”
“We’re coming from just south of Chicago, the city became too dangerous. We’ve been traveling for a little over two weeks,” Becca said while she self-consciously tried to smooth out her wrinkled and dirty overcoat.
“Oh, wow! You made that trip with only a baseball bat for protection? You’re either really brave or stupid…” Her eyes widened as she realized she’d accidently insulted us. “I mean... Look, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to say you guys were dumb, it’s just really dangerous outside of the town’s walls,” she stammered.
I wondered how old our hostess was. It was nearly impossible to tell from her voice, but I guessed she couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. “No problem, Sam. I know what you meant by the statement. We left with what we could carry and I already owned this baseball bat,” I said as I patted the big fat logo stamped across the bat’s surface. “We stayed mostly to the roads and kept hidden at night when the dangerous folks were out and about.”
“Well, I’ll take your word for it, Chuck. I came here from Springfield and…” she stopped abruptly again. “It was a difficult trip.” She glanced quickly towards the street and squeezed her eyes shut a few times. In the gloom of the rain, I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like she was trying to get rid of tears without wiping her face with potentially contaminated hands.
“Anyways, Virden is a pretty safe spot for us right now,” she continued. “We have everything we could need for the foreseeable future. We were far enough south from Chicago and north of St. Louis that the EMPs didn’t destroy all of our electronic stuff. There was a large grocery store here with tons of canned food and our guys are constantly going out on patrol to get more food from the surrounding area. Our town’s leader, mayor, sheriff, whatever you want to call him, was this crazy apocalypse prepper-guy so he sprang into action right away after the bombs started exploding. He convinced the high school principal to allow him to fill up the gym floor with dirt, so they brought in tractors and saved enough dirt before the acid rain came that we can grow crops inside once we get the lighting and irrigation down.”
“Geez, that was really smart. I’d have never thought of something like that.”
“Yeah, well, like I said, he was one of those weird prepper-guys. He even got featured on that TV show about people like him. He’s made us all watch it a few times since he’s still got power at his place, I guess to validate his abilities or whatever, but he’s alright. He’s a little eccentric, but then again, I probably would be too if I’d been made fun of my whole life for believing something and then suddenly everyone who was still alive realized that I’d been right all along.”
“Funny way of thinking about it, but I guess you’re right,” Becca said.
The snapping noises of the dirty black rain hitting the awning above us began to lessen. “Looks like the rain is letting up, so we’ll be able to go to the guest registration office soon.”
“I’m sorry. Did you say that the town has a guest registration office?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. Allan, the mayor, likes to keep track of everyone in town and the office helps him do that. Also, if you plan on staying, you have to figure out what you’re going to do for work. They really don’t like people who don’t bring anything of value to the town. As you can see,” Sam said with a slight curtsey, “the tour guide position is already filled. They’ll tolerate you for a few days, but if you want to stay, you’ll have to bring something to the community that they don’t already have.”
The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. “Okay, that’s our cue. Come on, the registration office is about half a mile or so down Main Street here.” Sam picked up her umbrella and started walking before we had a chance to say anything else.
Virden was the first real, functioning town that we’d seen since we left our neighborhood in Plainfield. We pushed our bikes down the road as we followed her and took in the sights. There were hand painted signs for seamstresses, a doctor’s office, a couple of restaurants and an outdoor survivalist store. I made a mental note to visit that last one as soon as I could.
“I don’t suppose anyone in town needs a financial advisor do they?” I asked half-jokingly to our guide.
“Seriously? That’s what you did before the apocalypse? Geez, that must have been boring.”
“Well, I thought
it was exciting. There was a different challenge every day,” I replied.
“Nope, don’t think we’ll be doing too much investing around here. What about you, Rebecca. What skills do you have?”
“I was an elementary school teacher,” she said as we continued to follow Samantha down the street.
“That, we can use. I don’t know what happened to them, but less than half of the school’s original teachers are around. We’ve got about forty or fifty kids per class, so that will be a huge help.”
“The town is still doing school?” I asked incredulously.
“Yeah. Allan says we’ve got to continue educating our kids, so he’s made it mandatory for them to attend up until twelve years old. Then, if the parents can spare them, he recommends that they be allowed to continue. Right now, most parents are letting their kids go, but everyone knows it won’t always be that way. We’ll need more wall guards as things get worse and we’re already beginning to need more people to do the long-range scavenging… I mean gathering.”
“Gathering, scavenging, it’s the same thing, right? What difference does it make what you call it?” Becca asked.
“The scavengers are the crazies out there, so Allan doesn’t want us associated with them. He forbids anyone from calling the gathering of supplies for the town ‘scavenging’. If you end up working with one of those groups and call it scavenging, Jesse will beat your ass.”
“Well, it’s an intellectual difference at best,” Rebecca pressed.
“I don’t know what you mean by that, but just remember that we ‘gather’ we don’t ‘scavenge’ and you’ll be alright,” Sam said as she stared over her shoulder at us pointedly.
“Who’s this Jesse person?” I asked.
“He’s like the number two guy in town. He was a big football player back in the day, then was in the army and came back to Virden after his tour of duty. He’s a good guy, but you definitely don’t wanna cross him.”
“You’ll meet him soon enough,” she continued. “Look, here’s the registration office. This is as far as I go. I gotta go back up front in case anyone else comes in for the evening. I’ll see you guys around.” She waved goodbye with her free hand as she headed back towards the gate.
* * *
We walked into the registration office and stood at the end of a short line of men and women of various ages. While we waited, the décor reminded me of better days. The building must have been some type of travel agency or something since of all the posters on the walls were of far off destinations and smiling, happy people in bikinis. I tapped Becca on the shoulder and pointed at the picture of the couple on the beach in Aruba. Her eyes crinkled in a smile. In a different lifetime, Aruba is where we had our honeymoon.
Besides the posters, the rest of the past was a distant memory. The thing that stood out the most to me was the four or five men seated at a table in the corner on the same side of the counter as the unregistered people in line. The men were playing cards, but each one seemed like he was capable of violence at any moment. They were all armed with baseball bats and knives, one man even had an axe. Given the handcuffs they also wore on their belts, I assumed that they were what the town was using for police officers. Leaned against one of the walls behind the former travel agents’ desk were several white boards with lists of occupations and the number of people who were currently performing them for the community. I assumed that the boards were placed prominently for travelers to examine in order to quickly determine if their skills were of any value to the residents of Virden.
Unusable computers and monitors were stacked carefully in the back corner in the hopes that the power would one day be restored. In their place on the desks were large notebooks full of lines and lines of handwritten text. As we stood there waiting to be seen, I tried to think what I could possibly offer to the community. It was great that Rebecca would be able to get a job, but I hadn’t been unemployed since I was a kid. My expertise had earned us a lot of money, but what good was that now? We didn’t even really have any form of currency because most of what we had was tied up in stocks and mutual funds. Hell, with the collapse of the government, our power grid and banking system, we were essentially destitute. What was I going to do?
The boards stated plainly that all the non-skilled jobs were taken. Dishwashing at the restaurants? Nope, ten people were already doing that. Trash collection? Four people signed up for that. I mentally scratched my head as I scanned the list. Firemen, police, wait staff, seamstresses, cooks, weapons manufacturing…huh? I didn’t even think about that last one, but two tick marks indicated that some people had. There were five vehicle mechanics listed, but all the vehicles we’d passed on the way down from Chicago were out of fuel and dead beside the road. Without a way to deliver fuel, those guys would be out of a job soon too. I began to get nervous as I thought about the options available to me and what the men with the baseball bats would do if I was told I had to leave town.
Finally, we’d shuffled our way forward enough so that we now stood at the front of the line that continued to form behind us. Another young girl, this one probably twenty-five or so, waved us over. We sat down and waited for her to finalize a few notes about the man whom she had been working with a moment before. A quick glance at the pages revealed that they listed the names of the hopeful residents, what their pre-apocalypse occupation was, what they could offer to the community now and a note section about the candidate’s usefulness. There were also a lot of names with solid lines drawn through them. I mean more than three-quarters of the names on the page. Crap, I thought. My palms began to sweat. How the hell was I going to sell myself to this girl so we could stay in Virden for a couple of weeks?
“Alright,” she said. I was startled when she spoke because her mask was large enough that it covered her entire chin and it seemed like she talked without opening her mouth. “Welcome to the safe community of Virden. I’m sure either Sam or Phillip briefed you on the way over about the town’s policy. We don’t allow freeloaders or people who can’t provide for themselves, but if you’re granted residency here, we have plenty of housing available and we even have ration cards for food and other essentials. First off, what are your names?”
“I’m Charles Broussard—Chuck—and this is my wife, Rebecca,” I said as I wiped my palms across my jeans.
“Okay, Chuck and Rebecca,” the girl said as she scribbled our names into her book. “What did you do before we got nuked and the world went to shit?”
“I was a school teacher,” Rebecca blurted out. Clearly she wanted to stay as much as I did, even if it was only for a week or so.
“Oh good, we need school teachers. Excellent.” More scribbles in the book. “And you Chuck, what did you do?”
“Well, I was a financial advisor…” I faltered. The pen stopped scratching.
“Oh,” she said as she looked up from her book at me.
“But I’m a quick learner,” I countered. “I’d be willing to do just about anything for the community.”
“We don’t need anyone with your qualifications Mr. Broussard, but since Rebecca has a skill that we’re desperately in need of, I believe they’ll allow both of you to stay. We always need strong hands on our gathering squads, so I’m sure you’ll fit in with them, that’s where we send the folks who have a connection to the community, but can’t perform other tasks.”
“That means we can stay though, right?” asked Rebecca.
“Yes ma’am, of course you can stay. Chuck, do you agree to be a part of the gathering squad?”
I glanced at my wife and shrugged my shoulders. “Yeah, I guess,” I said. “Gathering can’t be all that hard.”
“Yeah, sure,” the woman said. She scribbled the word “Gatherer” beside my name.
She turned and retrieved another ledger from the table behind her and opened it up to the bookmarked page. “Let’s see,” she said as she slid her finger along a hand-written list of addresses. “Just the two of you right?”
“Yes. No little ones for us yet,” Rebecca stated flatly. That had been a source of contention in our marriage for years. She’d wanted to start a family and I still felt like a big kid, playing at life. Now, with the way things were, I’m not sure if I’d ever be ready.
“Okay then, we have a couple of three bedroom homes available—hold on,” she said as she raised an index finger in our direction, then turned to the other woman who was registering a single man beside us. “Hey Polly, is the house on Blair Street cleaned out yet?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she answered back. “That mess is gonna take a while to clean out. If I were Allan, I’d just burn the place to the ground and be done with it.”
“Alright, thanks,” our registrar said to her partner and turned back to us. “Looks like you guys will be moving into 321 East Holden Street. Welcome home. There’s a map of the community in the back and there are several posted throughout town for the new residents.”
“What happened on Blair Street?” I blurted out before my mind caught up to my mouth and told it to shut up.
The girl glanced from one side to the other to see if anyone was listening. Then she began speaking behind her mask where no one could see her lips move, “We had a weirdo living there. He butchered like fifty people before they found out about him and staked him outside the town through both of his hands and feet. He’s been out there for a week and somehow he’s still alive. They say that there’s blood covering every surface of that house and that he was sacrificing people to the devil and then eating the bodies raw.”
She straightened up and said in a louder voice, “Now then, 321 Holden. The notes say that the doors are unlocked. It’s your responsibility to check the building to ensure no unwanted guests are living there. Allan, our town’s mayor, has given all legal tenants the right to evict squatters by any means necessary, including deadly force. The town’s law enforcement officers,” she gestured towards the men at the table, “are available to help you if you need them to.”
Enduring Armageddon Page 2
