Danny and Ash had also been in Massachusetts, in Boston itself, when the Flu had struck. He also made no mention of his family or what had happened to them.
“We were in a camp about ten times bigger than this one. Doing the same thing I guess, clearing out the dead bodies in the inner city. I think it was going to be one of their main centers.”
“How did you come to be with the General?” I asked.
“I’m not sure really. I mean he picked us, but I don’t know why. We were working on Washington Street when his car pulled up. It’s like he was inspecting our crew, then pointed at me, and then Ash a few seconds later. Next thing I know, we were put in a truck and driven here to Plymouth. We were taken to the building where you found us and a few days later the General turned up. That’s when we were given the uniforms and had our heads shaved. We were told by an English speaking man that we were being given a great honor, and would work for the General as his personal servants.
“I’m pretty sure he was given the job of governing New Hampshire. He had a big map of it in his office, although I couldn’t really understand a lot of what was happening, I could see pins and stuff all over it and they were moved occasionally, like they were tracking troop movements, maybe?”
“Strange they would pick Plymouth,” Jamal said. “It’s not exactly central.”
I shrugged. I began to think it was possible the Chinese knew something of the Drake Mountain facility before we thought they did. Anyway, it was a moot point now. The fact was they were gone, for now at least, and we had to get on with things and hope they wouldn’t come back.
“So, what now?” asked Jamal.
“That depends. Everyone is free to go their own way or do as they please. The Chinese are hopefully gone for good, but we don’t know how for sure how effective the Professor’s virus was.”
“Pretty effective, I’d say,” said Danny.
“Yeah, but the fact is they might only have retreated to the next state and maybe they’ll come back when the virus has dissipated. We can’t really know. Anyway, I need to double-check with Ben and Paul first, but I’m thinking if anyone wants to, they can come back to the Valley with us.”
“You’re not worried about strangers coming in and causing trouble?” asked Jamal.
“We have thought about it, of course, but we also know that we can’t all live isolated. If we’re going to make any sort of life, we need to connect with others. The more of us there are, the stronger we’ll be.”
“Okay,” said Jamal. “Look, I can’t speak for everyone here, but not so long ago I thought I might die behind these fences. If you give me a chance, I’ll come back with you and work my ass off to be a part of what you’re creating.”
“Me, too,” said Danny.
I nodded. “Okay, I’ll talk to Ben and Paul. Can you take over distributing the food?”
Ben and Paul sat down with me on the bench a few minutes later.
“I want to give anyone who wants it the chance of coming back to the Valley with us.”
Paul’s eyes widened behind his glasses.
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Maybe,” I said honestly. “But it’s a dangerous world now and, as Luke said, we’ll need to expand to survive. I just wasn’t expecting the opportunity to come up so soon.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” agreed Ben. “We can’t just leave these kids to fend for themselves. They’ve been locked up since the invasion; we have to offer, at least.”
Paul nodded. “I guess you guys gave me a second chance; it seems like the Christian thing to do.”
“I prefer to think of it as the human thing to do,” I said. “For the time being, at least, we aren’t Americans, Christians, Englishmen, or anything else except survivors and we need to start putting things back together.”
“Hear, hear,” said Ben.
“Come on.
I stood up and walked to where the kids were sitting and consuming the food and water we had brought them. Paul and Ben stood supportively beside me. It was funny, even after all I had seen and been through, I still felt nervous as I stood in front of all those kids.
“Hi, everyone. My name is Isaac Race. These are my friends, Ben and Paul. We are part of a bigger group and we’ve settled in a valley not far from here. We want to ... we would like to offer you the chance to come back with us. To live there with us as a part of a community. I’m sure you realize the Chinese are gone. They may be gone for good or maybe not. For now there’s no way to tell, but for us survivors, the best chance for us to keep on surviving is to stick together.”
A red-haired girl in front put her hand up.
“You have a question?”
“Yeah, how many of you are there?”
“At the moment there are nine of us.”
“That’s not many,” she said bluntly.
“True, but we’ve been through a lot. We have weapons and somewhere safe to try and start over. Anyone who wants to come is welcome, all that we ask is that you play by the rules we set down. Anyone who doesn’t will be sent away.”
No one protested this and there were no more questions.
“Alright, time to decide. If you would like to come with us, please stand up and move to my right.”
There was a flurry of movement as nearly everyone stood up and shuffled to my right. In the end, only a group of three remained seated. Two boys and a girl. They all had sandy-colored hair and were clearly related.
“You sure, Jimmy?” asked Jamal.
“Yeah,” said the boy who appeared to be the oldest of the three. “We’re going to go home.”
“Where is home?” I asked.
“Concord.”
I nodded. I remembered Concord well. It was where we had blown up the bar. It wasn’t a particularly happy memory. At the time, it had seemed the right thing to do, but I was forever second guessing myself. Could I have done it a different way? According to Luke that ability to hold myself accountable was what made me a good leader, but sometimes I wished I could just make a decision and be done with it, no matter what the consequences.
“Okay, if you’re sure --”
I really wanted to warn them off the idea, to ask them to come with us, but who was I to do that? The boy, Jimmy, was my age. He had managed to survive just as long as me and with his siblings too. I was pretty sure he had a fair idea of what to expect.
“Can you drive? It would be quicker and safer if you can take a car. There are plenty in town.”
“Yeah, I can. Thanks for the food ... and the offer.” He looked at his siblings. “We better get going; we can make some ground before it gets dark.”
“And thanks for setting us free,” his sister said, as they walked by.
They all high fived Jamal on their way past and he watched them go with a thoughtful look.
“Wait,” I called to Jimmy, just before he led the others through the gate. “Here take my gun; I can get another in town.”
“No thanks,” he said. “Really, we’ll be okay. You keep it.”
He waved a last time and they went through the gate.
“You think they’ll be okay?” I asked Jamal.
“Don’t know,” said Jamal. “But Jimmy’s no dummy, so hopefully yes.”
After Jimmy and his siblings left, we put our heads together and decided it would be best to take the whole group back to the headquarters where we could bunk down for the night in relative comfort. We waited for the rest to finish eating and drinking and a few minutes later we were walking back towards the fire station.
“Asshole,” said Paul under his breath. “I knew there was something off about that guy.”
As I had feared, the Hummer was gone and the stash of weapons with it. Of course, I was angry I hadn’t kept a more wary eye on Ash, but consoled myself as we trudged back into town it was not the worst thing that could have happened. How wrong I was.
9
As we walked back towards town leading the straggly troop of
grey clad ‘refugees’, I began to formulate a plan of action for when we arrived back at the abandoned Chinese headquarters. I would send Paul, Ben, and Danny to find more weapons and food while Jamal and I got the rest of the refugees settled in for the night.
I turned to discuss it with Jamal as we turned onto the town’s main street and began to pass the Post Office.
“When we get there --”
I was interrupted by a loud burst of rapid gunfire; it echoed through the empty streets. Every one of us fell to the ground. Some of the kids screamed and Jamal quickly shushed them. We all looked around frantically.
“It came from the direction of the bridge,” called Ben from the rear of the column.
I didn’t waste any time. I quickly ran to the Post Office door. Thankfully, it was unlocked and after quickly checking it was empty, I waved to the others. “Get them in here, quick!”
Jamal joined me at the door, helping to usher his people through the door.
“Don’t leave the building until one of us come back for you,” I told him. “Paul, Ben, come with me.”
I didn’t wait for them to answer, just ran down the street with my gun in hand and my heart pounding in my chest. There was a faint scream, it sounded like a girl, followed by another burst of gunfire that rang out and faded just as quickly. We ran along the sidewalk keeping as close to the front of the shops and buildings as possible.
There was no gunfire for a couple of minutes and finally we could see the roundabout. We heard yelling but couldn’t make out the words, except for two that were quite clear.
“No, please --”
The raised and pleading voice was cut off by a final burst of gunfire.
A stampede of thoughts charged through my head, but paramount among them was the fact I would kill Ash as soon as I saw him. This was his doing. It had to be. I tried not to think about Jimmy and his siblings. Over the pounding of our feet; I heard the screech of tires just as we reached the intersection and the stolen Hummer sped away.
“Fuck,” said Ben.
It was then, as I started running after Ash that I saw the first body. It was Jimmy’s sister, the girl who, just ten minutes or so before, had thanked me for freeing her. I didn’t look closely. Didn’t want to. I could see she was dead, the middle of her grey top a bloody, ragged mess.
Just a few feet beyond her was the body of her younger brother. He was face down, shot from behind as he had run away, a bloody trail of wounds ran from his buttocks up to his shoulder.
Their big brother, Jimmy, was on the other side of the road. He was on his back, half in the gutter, half on the sidewalk, his eyes staring lifelessly at the sky. Rage engulfed me and as I ran onto the bridge I began shooting my handgun uselessly at the quickly receding vehicle. I ran on, squeezing the trigger even after I’d emptied the clip.
“You fucking coward!” I screamed, making it halfway across the bridge before I finally stopped and bent over, hands on my knees and my chest heaving as I tried to regain my breath.
I fell onto my backside and sat cross-legged on the bridge for a long time, trying to figure out what we could have done differently. Finally I heard footsteps behind me.
“Are you okay?” Ben asked.
I took a deep, ragged breath and stood up, brushing my hair out of my face.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I just thought we were done with this shit.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever be done with it, mate. Like Luke says, its human nature.”
I didn’t respond to that. Couldn’t, even if I did want to rage and rail against the unfairness of it. Funny thing was, as tired as I was of all the death and carnage since the invasion, I knew that if Ash suddenly turned that vehicle around and came back, I would kill him right there and then and relish the job.
“Where’s Paul?” I asked, turning and starting back across the bridge.
“He went back to tell the others they could come, but said he’ll keep them back for fifteen minutes or so to give us time to clear up the bodies.”
I put my arm around his shoulders when I heard the hitch in his voice. I sometimes forgot this was as hard on other people as it was on me. “Come on, we better get to it.”
We took the bodies one by one into an abandoned house just up from the roundabout. It was a terrible task, and one I feared I would have to do many more times before it was someone’s turn to do it for me.
True to his word, Paul led the others to the headquarters around twenty minutes later. No one asked the question I dreaded, even though I saw some of them looking at the bloody patches on the road and sidewalk as we deliberately guided them away.
I could see the shock on Jamal’s face as we herded the last of the kids into the building. He clearly knew what had happened without my needing to spell it out. The whole event was more shocking for the fact we’d only been talking to the three victims just minutes before. We talked briefly and I confirmed his worst fears. He didn’t cry but was visibly upset, as was Danny. In fact, the shaven headed boy looked to be taking it harder than anyone.
“It’s not your fault, Danny,” I said putting my arm around his shoulder as we followed Jamal inside.
I told him the same thing a number of times that night, but he never looked like he fully believed it.
We attempted to provide the rescued kids a more wholesome meal that night. Another visit to the storeroom of the market across the road yielded two boxes of canned baked beans. It was messy; we didn’t have anything to eat from or with, so they ate the cold beans inelegantly from the cans with fingers and mouths. There were no complaints; in fact, they wolfed down the food like there was no tomorrow.
Once we had settled the kids into the rooms on the ground floor, Ben, Paul, Danny, Jamal, and I sat down in the foyer and relaxed. Our conversation was productive but constrained. I think we were all still in shock from the recent murders. We told the two boys more about the Valley and our hopes for building it into a home where we could live for the foreseeable future. They expressed enthusiasm and promised to help all they could.
We lay down to sleep after an hour or so, but it was at least another hour before I fell asleep. I ran the events of the day through my mind over and over, trying to think how I could have better handled the situation. Knowing what I knew now, I made a promise to myself I would trust my instincts better from here on in. If I’d trusted them about Ash, then I possibly could have saved three lives that day.
I didn’t beat myself up about it too much longer. At the end, the blame lay with the perpetrator and I hoped one day I would be able to dispense some justice for Jimmy and his brother and sister. When I eventually fell asleep, it was a deep dream filled sleep.
The following morning, we dished up a not so nutritious, but easy, breakfast of M&Ms and Pringles. We had enough for everyone to get at least a handful of the candy and a stack of five Pringles. There were no complaints, even though the carton of Pringles cans we found were well past their expiration date and a little stale. Compared to what they had been eating after the Chinese had departed (they had gotten desperate enough to consume grass and leaves) it was a veritable feast.
I gave Paul the list of ‘girl things’ Indigo had given me and tasked him with finding them in the drugstore Danny had given us directions to. He took three boys from the chain gang with him. Ben, Danny, and I went to gather more food from the market we had raided the previous day. This time we stripped the shelves of canned and dried foods, things that would last for a long time after we got back. Of course, we stripped it of candy and savory snacks as well, Danny yelling in triumph as he picked up the last packet of Oreos on the shelf.
Even as I smiled at him, I saw his expression of joy change to one of sadness.
“What’s wrong, Danny?”
“Do you realize this could be the last packet of Oreos in the whole United States?”
“I don’t think it would be the last, but it might just be the last pack we ever see,” I said.
“I lo
ve those things,” said Ben coming around the corner. “You Yanks have a few strange things you like, like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches –- vomit! But I really like Oreos.”
“Let’s have them,” said Danny. “There aren’t enough to go around so it’s no use trying to share with everyone else.”
“Now?” Ben asked, wheeling a cart around from the aisle parallel to ours. He had heard the conversation from the next aisle.
“Why not?”
“Okay, but you need milk if you’re gonna have Oreos,” the English boy said, reaching into the cart he was wheeling and pulling out a quart of long life milk.
We sat in a circle on the floor and Danny cracked the packet, handing out an equal number of the cookies to each of us. We couldn’t dunk our cookies, but were satisfied taking turns chugging the warm milk.
I never did have another Oreo, but have a fond memory of that few minutes sharing with my friends.
We headed back to the headquarters with four trolley loads of goods and Paul and his crew joined us a few minutes later wheeling another four laden trolleys. I noticed the shiny black boots he was wearing immediately.
“Nice boots, how did it go?” I asked him.
“Great,” he said, looking happy with himself. “I got everything on the list and a few more things like painkillers, antibiotics, and bandages.”
He really had outdone himself. On the way back from the drugstore he had broken into a small hardware store and also brought back a toolbox, flashlights, and boxes full of batteries. He’d even found two big garbage bags of clothes and boots.
“Great work. Okay, let’s check these Hummers. I want to go back with at least two.”
We definitely lucked out. In the rear carpark, Jamal found a Hummer whose cargo area contained a whole rack of automatic weapons, two crates of ammunition, a box of rocket launchers and another of grenades. He called me over to show me.
“Wow, thank God that wasn’t the one Ash and I stumbled across first.”
“You can say that again,” said Jamal. “There is another one here.”
We got in one each and drove the two Hummers around to the front.
The After Days Trilogy Page 53
