One Second After

by William R. Forstchen

  “I still owe you twenty bucks,” John would always say, and Hamid would just smile, for he had little girls, too, and he knew, and he was proud to be an American helping a friend.

  Makala. Funny, John hadn’t thought of her these last few days. My own starvation, he thought. The unessentials of the body shut down first and after four years of celibacy after the death of Mary he had grown used to it. He knew Makala was interested in him; in a vastly different world they would definitely have been dating, but not now. Besides, he did not want to upset the delicate balance of his family. Jen had been Mary’s mother; how would she react? The girls? They might like Makala as a friend, but as something more? For Jennifer, her mom was already becoming remote, but for Elizabeth, the death had hit at twelve, a most vulnerable of times, and her room still had half a dozen pictures of the two of them together and one that still touched John’s heart, a beautifully framed portrait from Mary’s high school graduation, the color fading but Mary very much the girl he had met in college.

  He pulled up to the town hall complex. The rumble of a generator outside varied up and down in pitch as more power or less was being used.

  One of the fire trucks was being washed down. The mechanics had finally bypassed all the electronics, done some retrofitting, and the engine had finally kicked back to life ten days ago.

  He walked in. Charlie was in his office, cot in the corner unmade, looking up as John came in.

  Charlie had lost at least thirty pounds or more, face pinched. He had a cup of what looked to be some herbal tea.

  “Two dead up at my house, shot them this morning,” John said matter-of-factly.

  “That’s eight reported now just this morning,” Charlie replied, his voice hoarse.

  John sat down, looked at his pack of cigarettes, fourteen left, and offered one to Charlie, who did not hesitate to take it.

  “Damn it, Charlie. You got to get at least one extra meal in you.”

  He shook his head.

  “Might not matter soon anyhow.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “We think the Posse is coming this way.”

  “What?”

  “Don Barber flew his recon plane out a couple hours ago to take a look for us along Interstate 40 heading towards Hickory; he’s yet to get back. Four days ago we didn’t have a single refugee at the barrier, two days ago nearly a hundred, yesterday more than two hundred; it’s as if something is pressuring them from behind. Rumors running with them that Morgan-ton was just looted clean, a damn medieval pillage. Also, we had a shooting last night on the interstate.”

  “So, that’s becoming almost a daily routine,” John said coolly.

  “This one was different. One of the few heading east. Big guy, looked fairly well fed.”

  “So what did he do?”

  “Washington spotted him. He just had a gut feeling because he had seen this same guy, the day before, heading west; he stood out because he looked so well fed. Washington tagged along with the escort taking this guy and some other refugees east and played dumb. The big guy was peppering him with questions. How many folks lived here, how much food left, any organized defense.”

  “A spy?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So Washington drew down on him just before the gap, and almost got killed for it. The guy had what Washington called an old-fashioned pimp gun up the sleeve of his jacket. Small .22. He actually got off the first shot and then Washington blew him away.”

  “Washington ok?”

  “Nicked on the side. Kellor said another inch in and, given the way things are now, he’d of been in deep trouble.”

  “Where is Washington now?”

  “Up at the college.”

  “I think we should go up.”

  Charlie nodded and the two got into John’s Edsel for the short drive.

  The drive up to the campus reminded him yet again of the lost world of but several months back, his daily commute of not much more than four miles, and he thought again of bacon and eggs. Damn, that would be good now.

  He almost said it to Charlie. Food had indeed become the obsessive topic on people’s minds, but now there was a ban on it being spoken of, a major breech of etiquette. It just made everyone crazy to talk about what they would eat when things “got better.”

  As they passed the turnoff to the North Fork road, there were two more bodies covered with sheets out in front of a home.

  “Ah, shit, not the Elliotts,” Charlie sighed.

  Three children were out on the lawn, all of them skinny as rails, except that their stomachs were bloating, a neighbor clinging to them. That had started to appear over the last couple of weeks, kids with stomachs bloating out, even as they starved. Kellor told John it was edema, fluid buildup as their bodies inside began to shut down. It was the type of images he would always turn off when an infomercial ran for some save-the-kids type charity. Always it was kids in Africa or some disaster-stricken area in Asia with the bloated stomachs. He wondered if now, at this very moment, in a place in the world where electricity still flowed, such images were on their screens: “Give now to save the starving children in America.”

  God, it was a sobering thought. Would our friends overseas, those we had helped so many times, without a thought of any return, now be coming to us? Were ships, loaded with food, racing towards us… or was there silence or, worse, laughter and contempt?

  “He was getting an extra ration as a grave digger, in fact two rations because he was digging two a day,” Charlie said, interrupting John’s thoughts.

  “And taking them home to the kids and his wife,” John said quietly.

  They didn’t even slow down but just drove on.

  They passed three boys, early teens, two of them toting .22s, the other a pellet gun, and the youngest with, yes, a bloated stomach as well. All three moving stealthily, peering up at the trees, the interlacing telephone and power lines.

  There was most likely barely a squirrel or rabbit left in town now, and birds were now becoming part of the pot. John’s own hunts had started to come up empty unless he went deeper and deeper into the Pisgah forest. It knotted him up thinking about it. Zach had not even died with a meal in his stomach. He had come close to fighting with his Ginger for the rabbit he had bagged yesterday. Ginger was only allowed the bones after Jen had scraped off every bit of flesh for a rabbit stew.

  “You know, we’re actually starting to run short of small-caliber ammunition,” Charlie said as they drove past the boys.

  “Most folks who had a .22 in the closet rarely dragged it out and at best maybe had a box of fifty to a hundred rounds. Understand trading now is five bullets for a squirrel or rabbit.”

  Fortunately, John still had several hundred himself, but he was short on shotgun shells. The heavier-caliber stuff, he had kept that for other reasons.

  The gate ahead was roadblocked. In the past the students guarding it recognized his car and waved it through. Not today. They forced him to a stop, one of them standing back with a 12-gauge leveled, while the other came around the side and looked in.

  “Good morning, sir; are you ok?”

  “It’s Rebecca, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She looked in his backseat, nodded, and two students started up the Volkswagen blocking the gate, let it roll forward for him to pass, then backed it into place and shut it down.

  “Kids are getting more cautious.”

  “Well, with all the dead last night in break-ins,” John said. “Lord knows how many others we’ll find out today were successful and the families inside the homes are now dead and rotting.

  “I think it’s safe to assume that some of this Posse crowd have already infiltrated in, looked us over, and decided we are worth taking, at the very least to then move on to Asheville. Perhaps some are even holed up in some houses watching if we are getting prepared.”

  They turned into the drive leading up to Gaither Hall. And the troops were out. The days of close-order dril
l long past, they were practicing covering fire and withdrawing in front of the library, Washington pacing back and forth, yelling instructions as John pulled up and turned off the car.

  Washington turned and went through the ritual, still the annoying ritual for John, of saluting, which he returned.

  Kids were all around. Hunkered down low, concealed behind trees, under vehicles, up in windows of buildings. Farther up the road John could see what must be the red force, Company B, deployed out beyond the girls’ dorm, a dozen vehicles running, some Volkswagens, again courtesy of Jimmie Bartlett, a few farm pickup trucks. One had a fake machine gun mounted on the back, technicals, John thought they were called in Somalia.

  Washington held up his megaphone.

  “Captain Malady. Now!”

  Kevin Malady had been, of all things, an assistant librarian. With his strong, massive shoulders, thick black hair, and lantern jaw that made him look a bit like Schwarzenegger, the kids quickly giving him the nickname Conan the Librarian. He was ex-military, a sergeant with a mech unit in Iraq back in ’03. He had just resigned from the library staff and had planned to go to Princeton Theological in the fall. Now he was the CO of Company B.

  He knew his stuff as they simulated the assault. The technical supposedly laying down fire support, a vehicle with a plow bolted to the front driving straight at the barrier.

  Of course it came to a stop, Washington shouting that the barrier had been pierced.

  Malady had more of his troops storm from around abandoned cars, rushing the barrier.

  If this had been done a few months ago, the kids would have been laughing, seeing it as playacting, shouting and whooping. Not now. They were silent, following directions from their officers, several of them staff and faculty with military experience, the defensive force pulling back, to try to lure the attackers into what would be the killing zone if the gap was pierced on the interstate. A couple of hundred yards back from the gap, the road was flanked on one side by a high concrete wall, a sound barrier erected for several hundred yards to shield the conference center.

  Washington had already established firing positions on the reverse side of the wall. The campus chapel, the new one built several years back, which now housed a famous fresco, The Return of the Prodigal, by the famous artist Ben Long, was serving as a simulator for the wall, students suddenly popping up from behind the ridge of the roof.

  “That’s it!” Washington shouted. “Once up, it’s fire superiority. Pour it down fast and hard, fast and hard. Panic them!”

  The simulation was starting to break down, kids standing around. There could be no realism to it, no blanks, no miles laser packs.

  They had used paintballs at the start, but the supply of those was used up in two days.

  Washington blew his whistle.

  “Stand down. That’s it. Take an hour break. Dinner at noon.”

  To John’s amazement, a fifer started to play and it sent a chill down his back. It was the D’Inzzenzo boy, not a student at the college, a local kid who had belonged to the reenactment unit and had taken to hanging around the college. Washington had taken a liking to him and he was now the official fifer for the militia, playing “Yankee Doodle” as the exercise ended.

  “Good marching stuff,” Washington said as John looked back at the kid, wearing a Union kepi. “The students love it and it’s good for morale.”

  Students came out from buildings, crawled out from under concealment, all of them armed. Their equipment had been gradually upgraded. Most were armed with semiautos, heavier caliber, a great percentage of Company B with deer rifles, a lot with scopes. Charlie had already said that if a crisis came, he’d release the automatic weapons kept in the police station to Washington. A few civilians had come forward as well, one showing up with what had been an illegal full auto M16 with over four hundred rounds, saying as long as he could tote it in a fight, he’d be part of the militia, a vet from the early days in Nam.

  Both companies were now rounded out by vets who had seen service, as far back as Korea, adding nearly a hundred to their ranks. These vets might be old, but they had combat experience and were now slotted in as squad and platoon leaders.

  Others, the survivalist types, including the legendary Franklins, were teaching the kids how to concoct homemade claymores, land mines, satchel charges, and homemade rocket launchers fashioned out of PVC pipe. The reenactors in the town regretted they could not get their hands on an original cannon, but were now mixing up black powder for these weapons and rigging up a field piece made out of steel pipe that would be packed with canister.

  As for the students, within seconds they were reverting back, a couple of the guys laughing, shouting g(x>d-natured insults. More than a dozen couples instantly paired up, a few of them, without any attempt at stealth, with arms around each other, heading down towards the woods behind the science building.

  “There’s a major problem brewing and figured we should check in with you,” Charlie said, his voice thin, raspy.

  Washington nodded and the three took the shaded path, walking over the old stone arch bridge that led from Gregor Dorm to Gaither. John had always loved this place in particular. On many a day he’d sit on the bridge to watch the creek tumble beneath him. Students were always passing by and it was a great place to just hang out, chat with kids, sneak a smoke with another smoker… a breaking of the rules since they were outside a designated spot, but the dean had given up a long time ago trying to hassle John about it, and the president actually thought it was good, a faculty member twisting the administrative tail a little with the kids joining in.

  They headed into President Hunt’s office. He rarely showed at the campus now, though his home was but a quarter mile away. In spite of the pleadings of John, Reverend Abel, and Washington, President Hunt had made a solemn statement that he and his wife would refuse extra rations. Every ounce of food had to go to “our soldiers and volunteers.” It was typical of him, incredibly noble, and as a result he was dying.

  They walked in and sat down around the conference table in the office, and as they did so, a humming sputter echoed and they were back up, looking out the windows.

  It was Don in his Aeronca L-3, D-day invasion stripes starkly visible on the wings and fuselage, clearing the crest by Lookout Mountain and then dipping down into the narrow valley of the Cove. He circled the campus once, tight turn, not fifty feet above the trees, saluted, and then leveled out to head south into town and the landing strip at the Ingram’s shopping plaza.

  “So let me guess. The Posse is coming,” Washington said. John and Charlie nodded in agreement.

  “It was inevitable; sooner or later they’d hear about us and figure we had something worth taking.

  “He went out when, about two hours ago?” Washington asked.

  “Make it two and a half,” John said. “That plane cruises at about sixty. It ain’t good news; they must be getting close.”

  They went back to the table and sat down.

  “One of the boys bagged a bear last night,” Washington said. “It’s down in the cookhouse now. Meat for everyone at noon, maybe a pound apiece.”

  John instantly felt his mouth water. Twice now they had bagged bears, and though greasy as hell, bear was filling.

  “I just wish we could get President Hunt to join us. I sent a couple of the girls up there to plead with him and they said he just smiled and refused. They were crying when they came back, said he looks terrible.”

  “That’s Dan,” John said quietly. “And maybe he’s right. These kids have to be in good shape. We can’t have them staggering like weak kittens if this Posse shows up.”

  “Are they ready?” Charlie asked.

  Washington shook his head.

  “Not very reassuring, damn it,” Charlie replied sharply.

  “Look, Charlie. I love these kids. Have known them for years. Down deep they’re mostly small-town kids with good hearts, and remember, as a Christian college here, we were drawing kids with par
ticular values and views as well. Or at least their parents saw it that way even if the kids didn’t.

  “But if you want the harsh reality, I can pick out a couple of the young men for you. Kids who grew up in the projects in Charlotte or Greensboro or Atlanta. And they’ll tell you a different story about reality. Kids at twelve cappin’ each other and boasting about being gangbangers. Kids at sixteen already with time in jail, maybe fathers already, cold-eyed as dead snakes, and most of them dead at twenty-five.”

  “The old sick joke,” John sighed. “You won’t find a drug dealer with a four-oh-one (k) plan.”

  “Exactly,” Washington snapped. “These kids here, up until two months ago were thinking grades, fooling around, getting married after college, the more mature ones exactly that, their four-oh-one (k) plans. What they face, if we face it, will not just be gangbangers from cities. What will have gravitated to this Posse will be every lowlife scum with a will to do anything to survive. Mix into that the psychos that Doc Kellor was talking about. What happened to guys in prisons when this hit? Where are they now? Remember, our proud country had more people in prison per populace than damn near anywhere else in the world.

  “Let them starve? Execute all of them? Maybe in some of the maximum-security houses the warden might have just done that. The food runs out and he lines them all up and shoots them rather than let them escape. But the minimum places, I bet those people were over the little chain-link fences by the third day. Most of the kids with a stupid-ass drug charge went home, but you already had some bad hombres in those places and they would gravitate together and now the world is a paradise, wide open, whatever they want if they have the balls to take it.” Washington shook his head.

  “The food’s run out here in the East,” Washington continued. “If we were in the Midwest, the corn belt, cattle belt, I’d be more optimistic, but here? Density of population versus on-hand food, it’s out, it’s gone.

  “And those barbarians, for they are barbarians, know only one thing now. Find food and gorge and take and inflict pain as they never dreamed possible before this happened. They’re thinking that even as we sit around this table, talking about rations, the nobility of our college president, the debate whether to shoot and eat our dogs.”