The work crew headed east on Reinhart Avenue and one of the women explained “Schiller Park” was now a major local food bowl. The big park was transformed into well-established agricultural land with numerous small plots giving it a misleading community garden feel, but the armed guards dispelled all that. Then the indescribable smell of baking bread hit them like a blast wave and the same woman laughed and explained a favorable wind was coming from the bakery on the far side of the block. Lucas pointed out a truck making its way along a back road, fantasizing about what might be within.
The agricultural park was a good chunk of space, but once it came to an end, the work crew approached another big set of manned gates using the first blocks of north-south housing as an architectural barricade. The truck slowed at the checkpoint, another dozen guards and a pair of motorcycles parked nearby. A tripod-mounted gun was up in a watchtower with command over all approach angles. Perversely, the sight put Tom at ease, though he quivered with a feeling akin to hunger surveying the sentries’ holstered weapons. And the gate clanking open to a view of the unpatrolled City beyond sent Tom back into his accustomed unease.
“Cheer up, dad,” Lila said.
“We’re going on a field trip,” Lucas said. “That’s what they used to call them, right?”
“You can ask your teacher tomorrow,” his father said.
Lucas made a righteous sad face and his sister crossed her arms and eyed her dad.
“What did they say about me?” she asked. “Did you ask about Miss Stacey?”
“The woman I spoke to was sort of one-eyed about it,” Tom said. “I thought we’d try to hunt down Miss Stacey direct.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“They want you working childcare.”
“Childcare?” Apparently, it couldn’t be worse. “You mean more of what I’ve been doing for almost five years?”
“Hey,” Lucas said and sighed in his sometimes adult way. “I resent that remark.”
The other workers looked on at the family squabble with amusement.
“Don’t worry,” a big Pacific Islander guy said. “This is pretty safe work.”
“I hope so,” Tom said. “None of us have guns.”
“The City fringes are picked clean, and we do regular sweeps for the Fury,” the man said. “I’m Kent, by the way: Dan’s foreman on the group. Department of Building Services.”
They shook hands. Kent introduced them to the others. The third woman was a Brazilian national who spoke only halting English, the others a mismatched group with no surviving trades useful in the aftermath of the apocalypse except helping strip and secure buildings as part of the City’s growth.
They turned through a few more streets and then hauled into a mid-sized parking lot empty except for tipped-over trolleys. “Big Falcon” marked the shopping store’s front. Two more work trucks were parked near the entrance and another crew unloaded metal sheeting and tools.
MacLaren’s vehicle rolled to a halt near the others and Lucas and then Tom were the first down. He helped his daughter to the pitted tarmac and then made way for the others. MacLaren disembarked from the cab and marched down the side of the vehicle towards them, slapping his hands together as he pulled on fingerless gloves.
“I don’t see any sentries,” Tom said.
“This part of the City’s mostly clean,” the unit commander said. “Nothing’s ever safe. Keep your eyes open. Keep those kids close, crazy man.”
“None of us have weapons,” Tom said.
“That’s not technically true,” MacLaren replied.
He eyed Tom up and down and Tom gathered he wasn’t just saying so because of the Glock on his hip.
“They took our weapons from us,” Tom said despite feeling like he was repeating himself.
“You don’t want Columbus full of armed gunmen, trust me.”
“I had a bow,” Tom said. “I could be useful if someone would only give it back.”
“The Administration won’t let just anyone walk around armed.”
“And what if someone turns and there’s no sentries around?”
“Then you get a shiv from the market place – like everyone else.”
“What?”
MacLaren gave a dry laugh.
“The ‘no weapons’ rule’s like a lot of the other Rules around this place, my friend,” MacLaren said and leaned in close enough to make Tom uncomfortable.
But all the other man did was nudge him, guiding Tom’s attention to the other crew members disembarking from the truck. A couple carried tomahawks and sharpened screwdrivers openly, but then Tom saw most of the others bore other weapons concealed under their clothes or just strapped to their ankles and wrists.
“Don’t wave your shiv around and you’ll be fine,” MacLaren said. “Pretty good rule in general, huh?”
He winked at Tom and banged on the side of the truck for no good reason. The last worker got down from the back and MacLaren huddled them into a quick conference.
*
THE WORK WAS easy enough. They were tasked with clearing out and securing the shopping complex for future use. Forager gangs had already removed everything of immediate value, but the long-term job involved barricading the site for Construction crews. The commercial complex had a dormant bakery and refrigeration systems MacLaren said would be put to use as a new rations depot for the City’s expansion eastward past German Town, with solar power – eventually, one day, hopefully – returning the shopping center to some kind of use. At some point in recent months, other crews had commandeered the empty site for tons of other items judged for future use within the sanctuary zone, and the better part of the morning saw Tom and some of the stronger men hauling gym equipment and old refrigerators and dead white goods into the trucks which then ferried them away to destinations unknown.
“There’s a good week’s work here, if you want it,” MacLaren said in the early afternoon, their break for “lunch” only metaphoric as Tom felt the familiar emptiness returning to his guts.
“Can’t offer the same rate, of course, but it’s safer than Foraging,” the bearded man said.
“Foraging might give me a better chance to earn,” Tom said. “Listening to the others grumble, sounds like ‘rations’ don’t really cater to much of a diet.”
“Citizens get kicked out of the Foragers all the time, trying to line their own pockets,” MacLaren said. “Reclaimers is safer work.”
“Safe?”
“Foragers go back into the outside,” MacLaren said and shrugged.
“That sounds pretty good right now,” Tom replied. “When we heard about the City, I somehow didn’t figure I’d be a wage slave again on day two.”
“We work to eat.”
MacLaren offered Tom a spanner as they removed an industrial freezer from its mounts.
“How’d you know I was ex-military?” the commander asked. “Takes one to know one?”
“Not me,” Tom said. “You just have that look about you.”
“I’m surprised it still sticks.”
Tom paused, a bunch of metal nuts in one palm.
“You’re not keen on leaving the City?”
“Solid work to keep me busy here, even if the . . . bureaucracy’s a little crazy.”
“Seems like more than that to me,” Tom said.
MacLaren stood. Tom joined him, trying not to wince at the act and growing conscious of the other man’s hesitation.
“My dad always knew I wasn’t cut out for it,” MacLaren said slowly.
“Called me a sissy before I even knew I was one. Years in the Rangers, thought I’d proved him otherwise. But after all this . . .” and he gestured. “I’m just . . . yeah, I can’t go back out there. Not after some of the stuff I’ve seen. I’ve been here since nearly the beginning. Too long, maybe.”
“You’re from Columbus?”
“No, since the Council started,” MacLaren said, abashed. “I guess it . . . made me soft, or somethin
g.”
“Don’t seem so soft to me,” Tom said and couldn’t tell if he was lying. “Isn’t it . . . just like getting back on the bike, or something?”
“Maybe for you,” MacLaren said, “fresh from all that pedaling. Me, Tom . . . I just couldn’t face it. Here I can pretend . . . pretend we’re all safe.”
“Mm,” Tom said. “I’m having a hard time with that.”
Whatever confessional passed between them left the unit leader raw. He brushed away his own admissions with an apologetic motion.
“You bring out my sensitive side, Tom,” he said and winked again, playing the rascal.
Lilianna appeared on their periphery, something guarded yet excited in the look she flashed. Tom excused himself – MacLaren telling him they’d be headed back before it got dark – and Tom joined his daughter who immediately led the way through nearby disused turnstiles and into the main barn of the old grocers market, half its metal shelving crookedly in place, the rest stacked and dismantled on the far side of the scuffed factory floor clearing a space for access to the rear cool rooms.
“You’ll never guess what Luke found,” Lila said.
“Something to eat would be good,” Tom said. “Breakfast’s a distant memory. I could get used to eggs every morning.”
“Then you’ll be happy.”
“You found eggs?”
“No,” she said. “Something better.”
They came on Luke lingering deliberately near the back wall, the yellowing plastic strips shielding the rear depot nearby. He cradled his dirty jeans pocket. The boy radiated enough furtiveness that Tom was glad he’d arrived before someone else twigged he’d been up to no good.
“Dad,” he said in a low voice. “I found some bullets in a crack in the floor behind some of the shelves.”
He produced a handful of 9mm rounds and Tom quickly took them from his hand.
“Shit . . . good find, kid,” he said and stashed them just as swiftly. “Keep it on the lowdown and we’ll talk about it later, OK?”
“That gets us dinner . . . at the Night Market!” Lila said, barely able to contain her excitement.
“Don’t let them catch you snooping,” Tom said. “Seriously. MacLaren’s giving us four days of rations for this work, which we’ll have to work out how to collect.”
“There’s a depot,” Lilianna said. “Karla said. There’s a big one near the First Gates.”
Tom smiled, though it looked like anything but.
“City life suiting you, babe?”
“Isn’t this what we wanted, dad, to find a better way to survive?”
“I wanted safer,” Tom said. “For you and your brother. I’m not sure we got that.”
There was a commotion in the depot behind them, but it was only Kent manhandling one of the day’s more objectionable recruits away from the two women in mechanic’s gear, Karla and (the other woman said) Ionia. Tom entered, followed by Lilianna and her brother, the pair under strict instructions to keep out of everyone’s way. They weren’t getting paid, though they’d already earned more than Tom if what Einstein said about the local bartering system was right: bullets were the new gold.
*
THEY ATE LIKE kings at the Night Market, dining first at Einstein’s stall in some kind of misguided show of loyalty, the confusing, generally kind-hearted vendor reminding them of the three hours’ pedaling still to be paid. That said, one bullet bought them breakfast for the morning as well as what they’d already had, and with that sort of wealth in the family purse, Tom treated the children to a second course at a neighboring stall which ran strictly at night, two lean-looking hunters battling tiredness to clean and spice and cook their own kill, and serving up mouth-watering skewers of meat more suited to a Moroccan bazaar than the ruins of the grand old city of Columbus. Tom carried a plastic-wrapped portion of cooked meat which made the package leaky with steamed juices as they cut back out into the darkness and approached their lodgings from the under-lit street.
After the heat of the day, it looked like rain was coming in, dampening the enthusiasm of Kit Conners and his friends, a lone wiry young man in the darkened workshop finishing up a project and paying them no heed as Tom led the children inside the building and back up the stairs, passing the doctor’s landing and cautiously continuing on to find the apartment door unlatched.
The smell of cooking came from within.
They entered to find Laurance kneeling at work on a small camping stove. He stirred a pot on the tiny hissing flame that was more water than meal. Dkembe stood in the corner of the kitchen, arms folded, watching like it was television. In the adjacent lounge, Shirts was spread-eagled nursing a glass of his choice of poison and probably already a couple of tankards in.
“Boys,” Tom said and they knew it wasn’t a greeting.
“My God and Goddess,” Laurance said and eyed the bagged food. “What have you got in there? It smells incredible.”
For some reason Lucas tensed, and Tom wondered whether the boy knew even before his father did that the covetous comment would spur his adrenals, making fists around the bag’s handle and the empty air at one and the same time. The younger men sensed the drop in the ambient temperature and Laurance stood and backed away.
“Hey man, it’s like . . . all cool,” he said.
“Is it?” Tom answered tersely. “You were meant to find somewhere else to stay.”
“We was working all day,” Dkembe said.
“Tom, if you’ve got ideas. . . .” Laurance opened his palms.
Tom turned on his heel and motioned for Lila and Lucas to follow, handing over the dripping parcel to his daughter and storming back down the stairs.
Dr Swarovsky opened the door with casual slowness, disapproval in every line at Tom’s rampant thumping.
“Mr Vanicek –”
“Tom.”
“You’re a little loud, as a neighbor,” she said.
“Hard not to be, with unwelcome house guests.”
“Yes, I wondered how you were doing with that.”
“You’re on the Housing Committee, right?”
“I stepped out of my job to help you and your family,” the woman said. “This is your problem to solve . . . Tom.”
The doctor’s her hair was loose, the blackness like gossamer, backlit by the candlelight of her apartment. Tom’s fist tightened and relaxed around the bag he no longer carried, aware with parental prescience of his son and daughter’s expressions even though they stood behind him.
“We actually have some . . . spoils, today, I thought you might like to share,” Tom said.
“Is that what I can smell dripping on my doorstep?”
Tom smiled and almost bowed, though Lilianna retreated a step with apologies.
“You’ve been at the Night Market,” Swarovsky said and a rare warm smile broke out, aided and abetted by the photogenic light. “You must be a fast-adapter, Mr Vanicek – Tom – if you’re upgrading from hard rations on your first day.”
There was no explanation for him to stammer without giving up the details, so Tom merely smiled, scratching the back of his increasingly shaggy hair as his eyes drifted to the stairwell above them, then returning to appreciate a little more of the doctor’s enigmatic charm.
“It does smell delicious,” she said. “What is it? Dog? Rabbit?”
“They didn’t say and I didn’t ask,” Tom said and smiled tightly again like it was a full-stop on further inquiries.
“Please feel free to come up and join us,” he said with only the vaguest of intentions in mind. “If you have anything you think might be good for a stew . . . it would be more than welcome.”
Whatever warmth remained in the doctor’s expression effortlessly morphed into a sly grin Tom couldn’t take as any flattery, too suspicious of the many levels of thought clearly running through this mysterious and scarred yet attractive woman. His own appreciation left him unsettled, so Tom now performed the full mock bow, Lucas tittering and his sister giving her
father the hairy eyeball as if she knew the jig was up.
All the same, his family retreated up the stairs after him and back into the terse confab of Laurance, Dkembe and Shirts, at which point Tom surprised them all by grudgingly commandeering their meager efforts at dinner. Swarovsky further startled them a few minutes later, appearing with parsnips, carrots and leeks. The younger men shuffled around and rearranged themselves nervously in the doctor’s presence, Shirts not well able to disguise his lascivious gaze.
That said, their meal was a solemn affair, voices low out of the habit of survivors. Laurance lit small candles and they ate around the upright low table in the living room, most of them barefoot on the room’s two old rugs. With the doctor’s valuable additions, the stew was luscious, and Tom felt a moistening of his own eyes at the richness of such sustenance in just one day, channeling the frequent muttered expletives of the other men eating the delicious spiced meat and vegetables from bowls pilfered from the already pilfered kitchen. Dr Swarovsky was a novelty presence, sitting across from Tom and for some reason with Lucas at her side. The boy had quickly bonded with Dkembe, peppering him with questions about basketball based on racial profiling alone. To Dkembe’s credit, once Luke’s questions showed how thoroughly clueless he was about what he even thought he remembered about the sport now consigned to the world long ago, Dkembe relented and explained the rules as best he could, getting Tom’s son excited when he referred to old basketballs trading for almost nothing in stallholdings off The Mile.
After The Apocalypse Season 1 Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 10
