by Schow, Ryan
Rowan didn’t want to say it, but with two days now behind them and a third on the way, none of them smelled very good. It was all bad breath, body odor, and dirty clothes. Pretty soon, stinking to all hell was going to be the new norm. Could he take it? Did he even want to? And how much crap could they really stack in a bowl before everyone started puking on the floor?
“When the sun goes down, these idiots get worse,” Clair said, looking down on the dark streets below. “That’s when they’ll try to hit us. You know they’ve been rattling the glass downstairs, right? Hitting it with their hands, their fists, their bats and their rocks. A lady from the first floor said she feels like she’s going to go crazy listening to them trying to get in.”
“For what it’s worth, they made the glass extra strong on the first floor, along with the front door, so it’ll hold better than regular glass,” Rowan said.
“I’m not going to put all my eggs in that basket,” Clair said, licking the fronts of her teeth. “My teeth sweaters are thick enough for winter if anyone wants to know.”
“Too bad it’s March,” Brian said.
Everything got extra quiet with nightfall. Even the energy between them changed.
The cold pressing against the windows, the transition from being able to see everything happening below to not being able to see your hand in front of your face…it was scary and disorienting.
“I’m going to keep an eye on back,” Tommy said.
“Can I come with you?” Dhanishka asked.
“I guess,” he replied.
The door to Rowan’s office was open, so he heard the two of them but didn’t think much of it. Then, when Clair whispered, “Did you see that coming?” Brian said, “With Tommy, yes. But not with Dhanishka.”
“If you’re convinced you’re going to die and this might be the only time you can have sex, if you’re Tommy you give it a shot,” Rowan heard himself say. “I don’t know about her, though. Is she into white guys?”
Clair said, “I think she wants to be with him, too. She’s still a virgin, you know.”
“You shouldn’t be telling us this,” Rowan said.
“Oh, who gives a shit,” she snapped. Then: “We’re all going to die anyway.”
Neither he nor Brian acknowledged this. But then Brian quietly said, “The fact that you like America and that you and I are together right now and unmarried…”
“Not with you,” Clair said quickly and decisively, as if the idea was repulsive.
Rowan snorted out a huff, then laughed at the absurdity of all of this.
Brian then cleared his throat and said, “I was going to suggest you and Rowan.”
Rowan said, “This isn’t the 1960’s, partner. There is not Woodstock, this isn’t free love, and we don’t have drugs. Plus, I’m happily engaged.”
“Whoa, whoa…pump the brakes boys and girls,” Brian said. “I was thinking that if we’re going to be out of a job, and maybe dead in the next twelve hours, I’d try my hand at making love connections.”
“Oh, save it,” Clair said.
“Knock it off, you two!” Rowan barked. “We’re not going to die, Clair.”
Downstairs, the HR started several bonfires. The infernos put off some light, but until there were more than one, Rowan didn’t expect to see much. A little while later, he walked out into the main office and sat down on the couch next to Brian and Clair.
“This is your life,” Brian said with a big sigh, “and it’s ending one second at a time.”
“Come on, man,” Rowan mumbled.
“What?” Clair asked.
Just then, Tommy and Dhanishka walked out into the office and sat down. The firelight from below didn’t allow for much detail, but there was enough information in their gait and posture for Rowan to grow suspicious.
“You guys had sex, didn’t you?” Clair asked.
Dhanishka shook her head, but Tommy nodded his, his grin so big you could practically see it in the dark.
The Bangalore resident turned and hit him. “You said we’re probably going to die.”
“We are,” Tommy said. He pointed to the window. “See? That’s what they did to the other buildings.”
Down below, a car exploded, rattling the glass. Everyone was quiet for a while. Then Rowan heard himself speak. “All these people in all these buildings, terrified to leave, thinking they have to get their last hump on…they’re all stuck, held in place by fear, soon to be dead.”
“Well, yeah, case in point,” Clair said, extending her hand out to Tommy and Dhanishka, as if they were her project and she was presenting them as such.
“At least something good happened today,” Rowan reasoned.
“I feel pregnant,” Dhanishka said. “I would know, right? Even on the first time?”
Clair smiled sympathetically and said, “Yes, of course.”
Chapter Eleven
Rowan McDaniel
He had the two-way next to him when he fell asleep, so when he woke in the morning, Rowan was surprised to learn that no one had bothered him through the night. He looked over at Brian, who was just waking up as well.
“Who took watch?” Rowan asked.
“Tommy took it,” Brian said, yawning. “He’s not back, so maybe he fell asleep on the job.”
“Who does that?” Rowan said sarcastically.
“Why are they terrorizing us?” Dhanishka asked, waking up where she and Tommy had fallen asleep together.
She looked a little rougher than the day before. Was it from the farewell romp with Tommy, or was she just breaking down?
Either way, he was back to obsessing over Constanza, which was why he felt himself starting to come apart. He had to get out of there. He stood, stretched, then walked to the windows and looked down.
Tommy returned to the office, looking tired. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” a few of them said.
Rowan, however, said, “These freaking rats won’t leave. They terrorize us because they can. They do this so a group their size—which is infinitely smaller than all of the people in these buildings combined—can control everyone, regardless of the body count.”
“What are you saying, boss?” Tommy asked.
“He’s just venting,” Clair said.
“My points are valid, though. It’s the fear. That’s what they use to rule you. First they shock your eyes and hearts, but you get through it because you’re resilient and you can’t help thinking ‘No, this can’t happen to me.’ Then it happens in front of your eyes. Just like now. You’re not really prepared, so you do exactly what we’re doing—you sit here hoping to wait them out. But we can’t wait them out because they won’t ever go away.”
“He’s right,” Tommy said.
“The second they blew up that tanker,” Rowan said, “we were done for.”
“I know all that,” Dhanishka said, “but why us? Why here?”
The blood on Rowan’s face had dried, but it was all over his hands, too. Looking at them, he saw that half the mess had flaked off on the couch where, sitting up, he had slept side-by-side with Brian and Claire. He didn’t care. He wanted more blood, more carnage. The Hayseed Rebellion had pushed this city too far. They pushed the whole damn country too far, and it was high time someone retaliated!
“There’s something wrong with them,” Rowan surmised. “Either that or they’re being promised their forty acres and a castle after all this is done.”
“You think all these guys are bought and paid for?” Brian asked. Rowan nodded his head. “But by who? I mean, when we research it, there’s like a thousand different rabbit holes and they’re all so deep.”
“I want to grab that slug, Senator Eichmann,” Rowan growled. “I want to wrap my hands around his stupid neck and squeeze the truth out of him.”
“Maybe we can get there, you know?” Brian said. “Make a run for it?”
“And then what?” Rowan asked.
Brian shook his head like he didn’t know. Waiting these
bullies out was one thing, but when you add an EMP to the mix, it’s hard to know the game, and even harder figuring out when the next hammer is about to drop.
“It’s like they’re waiting for something,” Clair said. “Orders or whatever.”
Rowan was getting more and more irate thinking about not being able to get to Constanza. He stood up and tried to walk off some of his anxious energy. Pretty soon he felt like kicking in a door. So he did. He broke Brian’s door in half, then punched a hole in the top half.
“Stop beating up the office!” Clair called over her shoulder.
“What are we going to do?” Brian asked.
Rowan didn’t answer. Instead, he walked into the storeroom in back, saw the bed Tommy and Dhanishka made of the boxes of paper, and froze. “Who ordered all of this paper?”
“I did,” Dhanishka replied.
“There are at least thirty boxes,” he said. “Why so many?”
“Remember during the height of Covid, when we couldn’t get squat?” Clair asked. He did, but she didn’t wait for him to reply. She just said, “We Covid ordered. Big supply in case things shut down again.”
“That was my fault,” Brian said. “I figured our accounts were flush, so why not have plenty of stock on hand?”
“How many replacement ink cartridges did you order?”
“Fifteen,” Dhanishka said.
“Good God,” Rowan exclaimed. “We only have four printers.”
“The world is a different place, boss,” Clair said. “You said so yourself. You said we can try to live like we used to and we’ll be unhappy, or we can switch tracks and try to conform, except we won’t be conforming.”
“You got the message right, but the context is all wrong,” he said. “You learn to walk with the enemy so that when you attack, they’ll never see it coming. My uncle Walker said—”
Tommy interrupted him. “Not the Uncle Walker stories again…”
“The guy was a badass,” Rowan said.
“And he taught you how to see the real world that existed beneath the shiny plastic veneer they’re trying to sell you on day in and day out,” Dhanishka said like she’d heard it a thousand times.
A few of them started laughing, and Dhanishka cracked a smile. Brian, however, wasn’t smiling. Rowan could see him wearing down. Now that Clair wasn’t going to have sex with him, he figured the guy was sulking on top of it all.
Without speaking to anyone in particular, Brian said, “You all act like this was all a failed conspiracy theory, yet Walker knew about the Hayseed Rebellion before they even existed. Before they started tearing up North Carolina, or the rest of the South for that matter, Walker was telling Rowan about guys like that—domestic groups forming to run an insurgency using guys with practical experience. If it’s all a conspiracy, then why did he call it exactly right? Maybe because Walker McDaniel was right. We were stupid not to have listened, yet we still make jokes while we’re trapped up here. Myself included.”
Dhanishka frowned and said, “It was the first time I got to crack a joke.”
They all shrugged their shoulders, but not Rowan. He said, “I know, I’m obsessed with this stuff. You know what else I’m obsessed with?”
“Your kid?” Clair asked.
“Yes, but more than that, I’m obsessed with the state of the country. I mean, I can deal with these jackasses, but now an EMP? I have to admit, I didn’t see that coming.”
“None of us did,” Brian said.
Down below, the guys with crowbars were breaking out the glass of the building across the street. Rowan couldn’t help but wonder, If they were this bad in broad daylight, what would they be like tonight?
He and Brian took turns napping. When he woke up, Rowan’s empty stomach hurt so bad. He’d been hungry like the rest of them, but now he was out of emergency bars and emergency water packets. He’d shared them thinking it was a good thing, and it was, but selfishly, he would probably pay the price later. But he also knew he wouldn’t regret it, or change his mind if he had to do it over.
Standing up, straightening his hair, he said, “I’m going to the bathroom.”
“Good luck,” Dhanishka called out.
When he got to the second-floor restroom, which wasn’t as bad as the bathrooms on the other floors, he looked in the mirror using only the light from a small window. He looked haggard, tired, psychotic with the dried blood still on his face. He tried to rub it off. Pawing at his cheeks, scratching at all that skin, he tried not to fall into fits of rage. But it was inevitable. There was no way he could stay another night. He had to get out of there!
He pissed onto a stacked pile of crap, then lifted up his shirt and felt his ribs. He’d lost at least ten pounds in the last few days. He couldn’t afford to lose any more.
When he went back upstairs, he resumed his post at the windows. The scumbag brigade continued to grow in both size and energy. At that moment, his mood was so bad he wanted to scream. He hated these people. They were down there having fun, terrorizing everyone, blowing shit up while he and his friends hid in the future chimney in fear.
“These monsters!” he snarled. He barked this out with so much disdain, it was like he’d given an Oscar-level performance spewing out just those two words. Clair and Brian both looked at him.
Down on the street, a skinny guy with two five-gallon gas cans was penguin-walking his way across the street, hardly able to carry the dual load.
“Look at that emaciated little bitch,” he mumbled to himself.
Two guys flanked the gas man. They started throwing jacks, wrenches, and crowbars at the glass storefront. The building they had targeted was three stories high with private offices, just like the one they were in.
On the first few attempts to breach the building, everything they threw hit the glass and bounced off. Then, the mighty crowbar smashed through, putting a huge rectangular break in the middle of the heavy panel. The guy who threw the crowbar ran right toward it, then flung his body through the opening. He broke through to the other side, eliciting cheers from the two- or three-hundred psychos below.
With the flats of his hands pressed on the glass windows like someone losing his mind, Rowan watched the gas man walk inside the opening with his two jugs. This was Rowan’s worst nightmare. The very thing he feared would happen to them.
The gas man sat the two jugs down, pulled a pair of rags from his back pocket, then stuffed them inside the flammable liquid. He then pulled out a lighter and—half-ready to run—he thumbed the flint wheel. After about ten failed attempts to muster a flame, the spark took and he lit one rag, then the next.
“This is insane,” Clair said.
“How is this even happening right now?” Rowan wondered aloud.
The moment the second rag caught fire, the first container blew, engulfing the gas man in flames. Expletives filled the office completely. Even Dhanishka joined in, dropping her very first f-bomb. Then they saw the gas man stagger out of the burning building.
“Holy Toledo,” Brian said. “He’s still alive!”
The gas man was a human torch. He walked right into a parked car, fell down and shook for a few moments before finally burning to death. Meanwhile, the building caught fire and that was all Rowan could take.
In his mind, in a voice that sounded like his but wasn’t his, something said, Go do what you have to do!
Rowan went to his office, grabbed his gun, took the box of 9mm rounds he grabbed from the car, then topped off his twelve-round magazine. He knew he should have taken the spare mags, but he didn’t want to fish his mag holster out of his bag, much less waste time putting it on. All he wanted to do was get down there and kill.
Chapter Twelve
Rowan McDaniel
He slipped on the stolen hoodie, pulled the hood over his head, then rushed down the stairs to find some guy he didn’t know standing guard at the door.
“They just blew—” he started to tell Rowan.
“I know what they did,” Ro
wan said, cutting the man off. With his gun in hand, he was ready to roll and this guy was in his way. “Let me out.”
The watchman didn’t hesitate to open the door. Rowan walked outside with the gun at his side, keeping it tucked in close. When he saw the shitbags and deviants cheering for the destruction, he opened fire on them all, pumping eight or nine rounds into them.
He put his gun away and ran into the fiery inferno, found a fire extinguisher, and put the flames out as best as he could. By then, people were throwing all kinds of things at him. He dodged a few things, got hit with a few more, and then the fireworks came in. He was rocked with explosions right and left, the light blinding, the concussions deafening.
With a grunting roar, he hurled the empty fire extinguisher into the crowd, nailing some kid in the mouth.
That’s when he went after his gun again. He walked outside waving it around like a crazy man, just as Walker said to do. In his peripheral vision, he saw a shoe flying in and ducked. The heel blasted him on the cheek, pissing him off. He then targeted everyone throwing things at him.
“Throw something else!” he roared.
With the gun extended and his finger on the trigger, he walked them back. But one kid was braver than most. He wore a devil mask and rode a skateboard.
He cruised by Rowan, slowly, fearlessly, unwilling to look away or back down. After passing by, he cruised back up the street to where the crowds were gathering. Kicking off the ground, casually, gracefully almost, he turned around and pedaled back for a second pass.
The kid’s mask was ugly, daunting.
Meanwhile the crowds continued to hold fast. Rowan understood. Looking at this starved demon, he remembered some of these anarchist outfits summoned dark spirits for help. They were into possession for power, and they willingly gave up their bodies to allow for the spirits of chaos to enter them. He didn’t believe in all that crap, but they did. And what he found was that the more they did that, the worse they became as people. Everyone knew it was easy to do bad things when you had someone or something else to blame. They blamed the spirits.
