One Second After

by William R. Forstchen

  He walked out into the living room, Elizabeth standing by the window, watching the sun rise, Ben nuzzled against her, nursing.

  She did so look like her mother as she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him contentedly, that Madonna-like face all new mothers have when nursing a child.

  “Morning, Daddy.”

  “How is he this morning?

  “Hungry little devil.”

  “Get something on a little more presentable than that old bathrobe; you’re going into town with me now.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it; wake up Jen and tell her to get moving as well.”

  He walked outside; the air was chilled, the sky overhead clear. The trees were really leafing out now, though farther up the slope of the mountains it was still winter and Mitchell was still snowcapped.

  Strange, a year ago today. Precisely a year ago.

  He walked round the side of the house and saw a fresh tulip beginning to blossom. He snapped it off and placed it on Jennifer’s grave.

  “Good morning, my little angel,” he whispered, and looked back to the window where Rabs sat gazing down protectively.

  Next to her grave was another, smaller. Very little had been buried there, but he felt he owed Ginger that for her sacrifice. Elizabeth had found a faded ceramic dog and placed it there for Ginger shortly after Ben was born.

  “Dad, what is it?”

  Elizabeth was outside, holding Ben. “Just get in the car.”

  The old Edsel, the miracle machine, was still running, though just barely, the rings going. He turned it over and it revved to life, black exhaust blowing out. Their remaining stock of gas was increasingly contaminated.

  Jen came out, helped by Makala. The two had indeed bonded over the long winter; the starving winter it was now called by those who had survived it. Jen was failing. Though she stood proudly straight a year ago, osteoporosis was taking over. She was developing cataracts also but could still see well enough to at least read, which had become her source of comfort during the long cold winter months spent next to the fireplace.

  The firewood. Though he argued against it, students made sure the house was supplied… and provided extra rations for Elizabeth as well.

  Jen got into the back alongside Elizabeth, and Makala climbed into the front seat. He backed out and started towards town.

  “What the hell is it?” Jen asked a bit peevishly. “Did someone get a bear?”

  That had happened three weeks ago and had been the cause of an actual celebration in town. Bear stew, enough to feed a thousand when some of the precious dried corn and apples were mixed in.

  A thousand, 960 actually, was the number now, at least as of yesterday afternoon.

  The starving winter, as Kellor predicted, had taken down most of the rest of the survivors. The months of cold, increasing solitude as already weakened neighbors died away, fires going out, the weak far too weak to crawl out, bring in wood, and relight the flame… curling up and then just going to sleep. The death rate soared once more.

  Just yesterday, at the town council meeting, Makala, now head of public health, had raised the terrible issue of burials. It had broken down by February. There were too many dead and too few left with the strength to bury them. It was estimated that hundreds of homes might now actually be morgues, the entire family dead. A hundred or more bodies were lying in the graveyard, decaying.

  The decision was made to burn them, the grisly task to be seen to by those who would accept triple rations as payment.

  That now was a horrible irony as well. With so many dying during the long winter, there was now actually enough food to see the rest through to summer.

  John drove down Black Mountain Road, the road that had been his daily commute for so many years. There was no longer a guard at the gate, too few left to man it, along with the outposts and barricades. At the intersection to Flat Creek Road he had to take a turnoff. The ice storm of two months ago had dropped dozens of trees in the town, the next block still impassable; there was no one with the strength to clear the trees.

  The First Battalion did still have strength, but he had kept them strictly to other tasks, to be the army, guarding the passes throughout the winter and guarding the food supplies. Their survival rate had been just about the highest. Black Mountain had lost close to eighty percent of its population in exactly one year, the college just over sixty percent, including the casualties from the war. Part of it was the resilience of kids in their late teens to early twenties, part of it the strict discipline, created by Washington Parker, continued now by Kevin Malady, and the slow, heroic sacrifice of President Hunt and his wife, who died from starvation, a month after the battle, so that “our kids” could have another meal.

  That memory had stayed with them, bonded them, inspired them.

  And as for the bonding, the campus chaplain had to perform eight weddings and a couple of the girls were coming close to due… and like Elizabeth, two of them would be mothers who lost the fathers in the war.

  Cutting around the fallen trees, John pulled back onto Black Mountain Road, continuing in towards town. A number of houses had burned during the winter and were gutted-out shells, others just abandoned, all within dead. The few with life still inside had yards already planted with this spring’s “Victory Gardens”; there wasn’t a lawn to be seen.

  The town was quiet, more a ghost town now, but still had some survivors and many of them were heading down to the center of town, some of them nearly running. They all looked like survivors of a death camp, skeletal, children lanky, with swollen stomachs, nearly every man bearded, nearly all in clothes several sizes too big.

  John drove faster now, heading down the center of the road, the sides filled with debris, broken branches from the storms, cars abandoned since the first day.

  And as he came around the bend to the center of town he saw them and at the sight of them Elizabeth, Jen, and Makala all let out a shriek, screaming so loudly that Ben burst into tears.

  John pulled into the town hall complex, not even bothering to find his parking slot. Hundreds were gathering, some even running.

  He got out of the car and looked at them….

  A Bradley armored personnel carrier was at the front of the column, fluttering from a pole strapped to its side… the flag of the United States of America.

  Behind the Bradley was a column that stretched back down the road for several hundred yards. Humvees, a couple of dozen trucks, five 18-wheelers, another Bradley, most all of them painted desert camo, all of them flying American flags.

  “Here he is!” someone shouted, pointing towards John.

  The cry was picked up, the people of his town parting as he slowly approached, eyes clouded with tears as he gazed up at the flag.

  An officer was standing in front of the lead vehicle, surrounded by nearly a dozen of his own troops who should be back at the gap, the First Battalion of the Black Mountain Rangers, talking with soldiers decked out as soldiers as John remembered them, Kevlar helmets, a mix of uniforms, though, some desert camo, some standard camo green, a few in urban camo. And yet it was his kids, his soldiers, who looked to be the tougher of the two groups, lean, hawk faced, eyes dark and hollow, weapons slung casually, the regular infantry obviously a bit in awe of them, especially the girls, who seemed as tough as the guys they were with.

  Nation Makers, he thought. He could see it now. His former students, like the soldiers in the Howard Pyle painting, ragged, half-starved, and yet filled with grim determination unlike anything seen in America in over two hundred years.

  The lead officer next to the Bradley, John could see the star clipped to his lapels, was actually in his dress uniform, as if to distinguish him, to make him stand out clearly.

  “Here’s Colonel Matherson!” And at his approach the soldiers of his own militia came to attention and presented arms. And to his shock, the

  GIs standing around them with all sincerity came to attention and saluted.

  The
crowd surrounding them fell silent.

  John slowed, stopped, looking at the one-star general, came to attention, and saluted.

  “Colonel John Matherson,” he said.

  The general returned the salute, broke into a grin, and came forward, hand extended, grabbing John’s, shaking it.

  “I know you, Matherson. Attended your lectures at Carlisle and did the staff ride with you to Gettysburg. Your lecture on Lee as operational commander at Second Manassas was brilliant. That was back in the 90’s.”

  A wild cheer went up as if this simple handshake was the reuniting with the old world. The crowd surged around them, soldiers suddenly finding themselves being kissed, hugged, more than one of them obviously disconcerted, since many of those showering affection had not bathed in months and more than a few were crawling with lice.

  John smiled, looked at the general, the face vaguely familiar, but could not place the name, finally looking down at the nameplate… “Wright.”

  John wondered what Wright was seeing. Americans? Or starved skeletal survivors, the type of survivors that America had seen all around the world for nearly seventy years, had offered generous help to, but never dreamed would finally come to their own land?

  “This column is heading to Asheville. I’m to take over as military governor of western North Carolina until such time as civilian authority is reestablished, but I wanted to stop here first.”

  The cheering crowd did not hear him, but John did.

  “You’re not staying?”

  “Headquarters will be in Asheville, but yes, we are staying in the region.” A sergeant standing atop the Bradley held up a microphone and clicked it. “May I have your attention please?”

  Everyone fell silent, looking up at him with awe. It was the first voice amplified by a loudspeaker that they had heard in a year.

  “Excuse me,” Wright said, and he climbed aboard the Bradley, the sergeant extending a hand to pull him up.

  “My name is General Wright. I am an officer in the army of the United States of America and we are here to reunite you with your country.”

  The cheering lasted for several minutes, Makala was up by John’s side, hugging him, many were crying, and then spontaneously one of the militia girls, a member of the school choir, began to sing:

  “Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light…”

  Within seconds it was picked up by all, and all wept even as they sang.

  The general stood with head lowered, and there was no acting as he brushed the tears from his face.

  “I have been assigned to be military governor of the region of Western North Carolina. My headquarters will be established by the end of the day.”

  “You’re not leaving us?” someone cried.

  “No. Of course not. I’m asking you now to move to the rear of this column and please line up patiently. Each of you will then receive three rations, what the army calls meals ready to eat.”

  Another wild cheer.

  “We have a medical team with us who will try and lend a hand with any serious cases of the moment. All children, expectant mothers, and mothers of infants will also receive a three-month supply of vitamins.”

  Vitamins, John thought. My God, so American. Something good from a small bottle. It lifted him even more than the food. Elizabeth had come through her time but just barely. The vitamins for her and the baby would be lifesavers.

  “This column must depart in one hour for Asheville, but I swear to you as a soldier of the United States of America, we are here to stay. By next week another supply column with more food and medicine should arrive.”

  He handed the microphone back to the sergeant and jumped down, returning to John, while the sergeant started to direct the crowd to move, the troops with him helping. John watched them go, a medic already up to Elizabeth, stopping her, looking at her and the baby. The mere sight of that again filled John with tears. Soldiers were already passing out single sticks of chewing gum to children, who upon learning about the treats were swarming round.

  As the crowd flooded past, the general motioned for John to walk with him.

  “How bad was it here?”

  “Very bad,” John said.

  “Yeah, I saw your greeting card at the top of the pass.”

  John suddenly felt embarrassed. The corpse of the Posse leader had hung there throughout the winter, bones picked clean in a matter of days by crows. Part of the skeleton still dangled there. The ravine below had been a feasting place for scavengers for weeks, nearly a thousand bodies dumped there.

  “We followed the wreckage of their trail clear from Statesville to here. You did a hell of a job wiping them out.

  “I saw the ashes of the fire on both sides of the interstate. It burned clear down to Old Fort, or what was Old Fort. You did that to trap them.”

  John nodded.

  “Good plan, Colonel.”

  “History teaches something at times.”

  “How many survivors here? One of the first things we’ll need done is an accurate census; then ration cards will be issued out.”

  “I already have cards issued.” Wright smiled.

  “These will be for federal rations.”

  “Right,” and John nodded, wondering if he was suddenly feeling a resentment that he had just lost control after so many painful months of struggling to keep his town alive.

  “What percentage survived here?”

  “Around twenty percent, maybe a bit less if we count those who came in after it happened.”

  Wright shook his head.

  “Is that bad?” John asked nervously, wondering now if he had failed. “Bad. Christ, it’s incredible up here. Places like the Midwest, with lots of farmland and low populations, more than half survived, but the East Coast?” He sighed.

  “Here in the East, it’s a desert now. Estimates are maybe less than ten percent still alive. They hit us at the worst possible time, early spring. Food would run out before local harvests came in, and a lot of crops, especially farther north, had yet to be put in the ground.”

  He looked off.

  “They say in all of New York City there’s not much more than twenty-five thousand people now and those are either savages or people hiding and living off scraps of garbage. A thermonuclear bomb hitting it directly would have been more humane.

  “Cholera actually broke out there last fall and the government decided to abandon the city, just isolate it, and no one was allowed in; the few in were not allowed out. A friend of mine stationed there on duty said it was like the Dark Ages.”

  He sighed and forced a smile as if realizing he was rambling, talking about something best left unsaid.

  “You did good, Colonel Matherson, real good. We ran into a few refugees on the road, bitter that you wouldn’t let them in, but one old guy, a vet, said he admired you folks, that word was you actually stuck together while the rest of the country went to hell.”

  He nodded, unable to speak.

  Wright stood silent, then lowered his head, his voice a whisper. “They say nearly everyone in Florida is dead. Too many people, too little land devoted to food.”

  “What about all the oranges and cattle land?”

  “Everything broke down. People killed the cattle for a single meal, and in that heat by the following morning most of the meat was rotting and swarming with flies. So they ate it anyhow and you know what then happened.”

  “The ocean? All the food out there.”

  “Incredible as it sounds, pirates made it all but impossible for any kind of serious fishing. It was like something out of the seventeenth century. The coast is riddled now with pirates; the navy is hunting them down. A couple of small towns, especially along the keys, set up good defenses, only one road to block, and their own navies to guard the fishing boats, so they got through relatively ok, but the hurricane last fall knocked them over pretty hard.”

  “Hurricane?”

  He had all but forgotten that natural catastrophes that had once
riveted the nation and caused massive outpourings of aid would still continue and if striking but a hundred miles away be all but unheard of.

  “Another Katrina, bull’s-eye right on Miami, a smaller one Tampa-Saint Pete a few months later.”

  He fell silent for amoment, looking off.

  “This time around, though, no outside help to come pouring in like in New Orleans. It was a death blow for those still alive.

  “Add in the heat without AC. Few houses down there today were designed for living without AC. Add in twenty percent of the population as elderly, so many dying in the first days that they say that in some of the retirement towns the dead carpeted the streets, again like something out of the plagues of old. Disease just exploded in that climate; that’s what killed most of them before starvation even set in… food poisoning, heat exhaustion, bad water or no water, then malaria, West Nile, they say typhoid and dysentery ran rampant in the Miami area, even reports of bubonic plague….” He paused.

  “Cannibalism even, like your Posse types… but also a lot of people driven mad with hunger. Cults sprang up, one damn near like the Aztecs, into human sacrifices to atone for the wrath of the earth spirits, others some weird play on the Last Supper and Communion, that this was now God’s will and it was OK to eat the dead. Others, well, just wackos.”

  John sighed. The Prozac nation on withdrawal, he thought, remembering Kellor’s warning.

  “The only ones left there now the barbarians and a few small communities with good tactical positions, like yours, and a good leader, like you.”

  There was something about the way the general spoke that caught John. Why was he focusing on Florida?

  John looked at him, felt he shouldn’t but had to ask.

  “Sir, your family. Are they OK?”

  The general looked back at him, eyes bright.

  “I was with Central Asian Command. You know our stateside command is in Tampa—Saint Pete. I shipped over to Iraq month before we got hit.” He sighed.