“Taken? By who?”
“It’s a—”
“Long story. Gotcha. Not looking to pry, just trying to figure out what made y’all think coming up here was a good idea. Seems to me the only thing it’s gotten ya is hurt.”
“It was his idea.” Katia raises my hand, volunteering me for the teacher.
“I thought maybe…ow!”
“That was the last one.” Martha holds the sliver of glass in front of me. Damn thing felt a hell of a lot bigger than it looks.
“Like she said, we’ve been flying blind, with no landing zone in sight. I remembered this place from when I was a kid. I thought maybe there’d be some form of communication up here…I don’t know, some sort of working infrastructure; sounds stupid saying it now.”
“Sounds downright foolish.” Martha stands and begins repacking her medical bag. “No internet or telephone up here. I can’t imagine you’re going to find that anywhere, at least not until someone a hell of a lot smarter and more capable than you or I comes in and starts rebuilding. That kinda stuff requires electricity, first and foremost. To my knowledge, most folks don’t have that anymore, including yours truly, though I do have a ton of batteries.We’re back in the stone-age, years of evolution, down the drain. Everything is gonna have to be reinvented. You are young. Stay alive. Give it a few decades. You can help restart this engine, be the next George Washington and…what’s the name of a famous broad?” She turns and squints at Katia.
Katia seems mildly insulted.
“Betsy Ross,” I volunteer.
“Who was she?” Martha asks.
“Sewed the first American flag.”
Martha nods. “That’ll do.”
“I don’t sew.” Katia sprouts thorns.
Martha is unfazed. “You can learn.” She drops the medical bag behind the ticket counter. “I have been hearing a lot of chatter over the CB lately.”
I forget my arm is wounded and shove myself up into a sitting position. “A CB radio?” My words are pain-soaked grunts.
“Why, yes.” She seems amused by my sudden burst of excitement.
“What have you heard?” Katia sounds excited as well.
Martha shakes her head. “I don’t remember it all off hand, but I have been jotting it down in a journal. You’re welcome to come up and have a look.” She motions towards the stairwell.
I’m not excited by the idea of hoofing it up multiple flights of steep metal, especially with the way my face and shoulder are feeling right now. However, I’d run this mountain barefoot to see what Martha’s got written in that journal.
***
We hike up flight after flight of red, metal stairs, gripping yellow hand rails the entire way. We have a hell of a view; the outside wall is a solid sheet of Plexiglas. In the distance, we can see the Rabid, appearing like ants, aimlessly wandering the expanse of Bathhouse Row. By the time we reach the top, I’m soaked through and my face is burning from the salt in my sweat.
“Sorry ‘bout the hike, but the higher up you are, the better signal you can get.”
The room is shaped like a circle. It’s got metal walls and a wooden floor. Carved into the walls are large rectangle windows, spaced out every two feet. Beneath each window are large display cases. Me and Katia start in separate directions around the room, while Martha stands in the center of it, watching us. We run our hands across the tops of the cases, briefly taking in the contents of each one, before moving onto the next. There’s nothing too interesting; mostly just the mob history of Bathhouse Row and some stuff about Clinton (he was the governor once, something I didn’t know).
“I hated that sonofabitch.”
“Come again?”
“Clinton,” she nods to the display case I’m fondling, “my husband loved him; figures, they were both cheating bastards.”
“Ah, gotcha. I was too young to really care, to be honest.” I turn back to a black-and-white mural of Bathhouse Row. It’s an aerial shot, with paragraphs of script delving into the history of illegal gambling and the two criminal families that fought for control of the town.
“I know everything in those cases by heart; every word, every punctuation mark; had to do something to keep my mind from flipping. I would walk the stairs and rooms, pretending I was some sort of tourist guide, experimenting with the lilts and tilts of my voice, waving my hands all around.”
“I suppose you gotta occupy yourself somehow.”
There’s a little wooden desk on the far side of the room with a brown, wooden chair sitting off center in front of it. The CB sits atop the desk, surrounded by a few sheets of white copy paper, an empty glass containing (what looks to be) congealed milk, and a brown journal with a red ribbon sticking out from between the pages.
I walk up to the desk and run my hand across the top of the radio box, brushing away a thin film of dust. The mic is plugged in below a glowing frequency panel. The face is covered with silver dials. On the right-hand side is a channel knob. The display above the knob reads 19.
“What sort of distance do you get on this?” I ask.
“It’ll easily do fifty miles. I’ve got a hundred before, but that came with a fair bit of static.”
“That’s impressive. My dad’s CB was lucky to get twenty on a clear day.”
Katia appears beside the desk. “Can we go ahead and get a look at that journal, please?”
Martha rolls her eyes and drops the journal in front of her.
Katia flicks the cover open with the back of her hand and begins thumbing through the pages.
“You’re not gonna be able to understand all that,” Martha says, leaning across the desk on the heels of her hands.
“I can read.” Katia is curt with her dismissal.
“No, sweetheart, I mean it; you can’t make heads or tails of that.” Martha smiles and waits patiently for Katia to admit defeat.
Katia, in all of her hardheaded glory, flips through half the journal before barking, “Fine! What’s the thing say?”
Martha’s smile grows wider as she picks up the journal, unmoved by Katia’s display of frustration. “You’ve still got some things to learn if you plan on surviving out here long term.” Martha moves around behind me and pulls the chair away from the desk, the legs scraping the floor as she goes.
“I don’t need lessons from you, lady. I’ve been through it, I’m still here.”
“Luck will only get you so far.” Martha plants herself in the chair. “You gotta learn to trust people. Admit when you don’t know something and let the ones that are stronger than you in those areas fill in the gaps.”
“I don’t need the pep-talk, Mom. I know how to trust people.”
“Timmy?” Martha raises her eyes to me.
“Oh, hell no, leave me out of this. I gotta be on the road with this girl.”
“You were saying?” Katia crosses her arms.
“You got that boy wrapped around your finger something tight, gotta respect that. Get over here, I’ll show you what’s what.”
Katia swells with the slightest hint of pride as she walks over and kneels down beside Martha. Yeah, she has me wrapped around her finger. I’d go to Hell and back for her. She’s the last bit of thread connecting me to this tapestry of madness, if it breaks…hell, I don’t want to think about what happens if it breaks.
Martha has the book folded open in her lap. “You see these numbers? This part is easy enough; it’s just dates and times. Then you’ve got this number here. When I talked to these folks, I asked each of them how many were in their group.”
“Twenty? This person had twenty people?” Katia asks in disbelief.
“Yep, that’s what he said. Was hauling them in the back of a moving truck.”
“D.C.?”
“That’s where all of them said they were headed. Washington. And that’s just the ones that had radios. I’ve only got a page worth of logs here. According to one of the gals I talked to, there are rivers of folks floating to D.C.”
Martha has my full attention. “Did she say why?”
“Oh, I know why.” Martha eases up out of the chair and holds onto the back of it until she’s sure about her footing.
Katia huddles up next to me and puts her arm around my waist. We’re both jittering with nervous excitement.
“Every night, a few hours past sundown, a call comes over this channel. It’s the same voice, same man, every night. He talks about a colony, a beacon on a hill, his words, not mine. They claim there’s food, water, beds; room enough for everyone. Claim it’s the beginning of the new world.”
Katia wraps her hands around my bicep and starts pulling at my arm excitedly. “I bet that’s where Ruiz is! And if he’s not there, I bet one of the people in charge knows where he is!”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…yeah, maybe. I’m not trying to crush any dreams. He may very well be there. If he’s there, it’s probably not by his own accord; I can’t see Ruiz living under government protection. So what do we do?”
“We go in and get him!”
“Really? The three of us against how many? We’re still shooting in the dark here. For all we know, your brother got away and he’s out there on the road, just like us.”
“At least we go down fighting!”
“But what if we don’t have to go down at all? Listen, these guys don’t know what we look like. There’s a way to play this where we all come out alive. I’m not saying we don’t go in. We go in. We get the lay of things. And we hit the root system before the flowers even know we’re there.” My words seem to work like a bucket of water, dampening Katia’s fiery wrath.
Martha laughs and thrusts a thumb at me. “I like this kid.”
Katia’s face flushes and a smile begins to take form at the corners of her mouth as she digs at the floor with one of her combat boots like a schoolgirl with a crush. “Yeah, I like him a little too.”
“Aw, shucks, you guys,” I feign embarrassment and play the clown, hugging myself and twisting away from Katia’s attempted embrace. It gets a laugh and, for a brief moment, our task is forgotten; mission accomplished. “When does that broadcast come on next?”
“Should be here in the next few hours.”
“Good, I want to hear it.”
***
Citizens of this great nation, if you are out there and listening to my voice, there is hope. We have always been a resilient people…a resourceful people, and that resilience and resourcefulness has led us to this moment, the moment where we, the sons and daughters of America, rise up from the ashes, to rebuild this great nation once more. Come to Washington, D.C., to the Hothfield Village Complex. We’ve got food, water, shelter, and security. Come as you are, bring what you can, and join your fellow Americans in taking back what is ours. Travel safe, God be with you.
All three of us are gathered around the desk as the radio goes silent.
“Is it the same message every night?” I ask.
Martha thinks for a minute. “You know, it’s not, actually. He switches words up here and there.”
“Alright, so it’s a live broadcast, which means he can’t be in D.C.”
“Why not?” Katia asks.
Martha fields the question. “I wouldn’t get the reception. D.C. is too far. This thing, at its best, has only done a hundred miles.”
“So what are you saying, Tim, you think it’s bullshit?”
I walk to one of the observation windows, the heels of my boots licking hard at the wooden floor. “Nah, not saying that at all. I think he’s being downright honest. He’s probably a scout. They may have guys like him scattered all over, putting the calls out for survivors; that’d be my best guess.” There’s a fire twinkling on the horizon. It’s small. Controlled. Perhaps they are survivors on the road to DC.
“What if it’s a trap?” Katia asks.
“I don’t think it’s a trap, my dear.” Martha falls back into her chair, slapping her hands down on her knees. “Word travels down the line. Someone would have put a warning out over the air. There’s something up there, something legitimate, and folks are flocking to it.”
“So why haven’t you flocked?” Katia asks.
“Me?” Martha seems surprised by the question. “I’m too old to be tearing up my roots. This is my home. I was born here and I reckon I’ll die here. If they manage to get all this straightened out before I take my last breath, they’ll be needing someone that knows this town, someone to help build it back up; I reckon I’d like that someone to be me.But y’all should go.” Martha’s finger slides back-and-forth between us. “Hopefully, you’ll find who you’re looking for, settle whatever score needs settling, and you’ll be able to start over.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me.” Katia takes my hand.
“That it does.”
Martha watches us fondly for a few moments. “I suppose y’all will be passing the night here?”
“If that’s alright with you, we’d definitely appreciate it,” I say.
“Sure, got plenty of space. But before we do anything else, we need to get that bandage on your shoulder changed out.”
I look down and notice I’ve bled through.
***
Martha offers to make dinner for all of us. She’s got a fold-out table on the second floor, surrounded by plastic chairs. She sets up a portable one-burner stove in the middle of the table, breaks out a small pot, fills it with a couple cans of ravioli, and gets to cooking.
“It runs off butane. Seeing as how I ain’t got more of the stuff, I only break this baby out on special occasions.”
“This is a special occasion?” Katia scoots her chair close to mine and sets her hand in my lap.
“A group of friendly survivors, folks that ain’t trying to slit my neck and take what’s mine, yeah, that calls for a little celebration.”
Sonny is at one end of the table. “I must say, it smells downright delicious.”
Martha scoops the final can of ravioli into the pot; there’s a wet plop and a little explosion of meat sauce. “There’s nothing like the little aftertaste of metal that sits at the back of your throat after each bite.” Martha collects the cans and deposits them into a white grocery bag. She ties it off and throws it in the corner. “I went through all the good stuff pretty quick. I had a bag of frozen chicken that had to be polished off before it went bad—spent a full evening grilling it over a fire in the parking lot. I also had myself a few tins of chocolate-covered cashews, a key lime pie, and a pineapple upside-down cake. It was some good eating in the early days.”
“Sounds like you had a lot of special occasions.” My mouth is watering now.
“Yeah, there were some. I’ve always been a dessert first kinda girl.” She smacks her lips as if she can still taste the sugar. “I celebrated after I cleared this place out; took down half a pie that night. Gobbled down some more after I got done creating that Passion Play in the parking lot. I polished off most of the turnover cake after the first conversation over the CB. And when I killed my first one, when my friends were still alive, I took down a bag of jerky. I believe in that. I believe in celebrating the good moments. I think it makes them stick longer and stronger, gives you a weapon to wield when the dark times come knocking.”
“You know how I celebrated taking down my first one?” Sonny sits forward, palms flat on the table. “I shit myself. Guy I worked with came at me in the garage and it was just a reflex. I stabbed him right through the forehead with a screwdriver and then I fell down and shit myself. I drove home like that…or at least I tried to. Roads were all clogged. People were turning Rabid. Getting shot up. I sat in my own shit for a good four hours.” Sonny releases a long sigh, as if a great weight has just been lifted from his shoulders.
It’s too much.
All three of us break into hysterical laughter.
Martha is louder than me and Katia combined. “Sonny, you are something; my word. Can I keep him, please?”
&nb
sp; Katia wipes her eyes with her knuckles. “Be my guest, we’re not using him.”
“That’s cold, y’all. Real cold.” Sonny is sitting there now, looking all po-faced.
“Hey, bubba, if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can ya laugh at?” I toast him with a water bottle and give his foot a little kick under the table.
“Yeah, I suppose.” Our merriment gets the best of him and soon he’s chuckling too, regaling us with further stories of his survival misadventures.
Before long, the ravioli is boiling and Martha is serving it to us in Styrofoam bowls. “Not exactly biodegradable, but the planet is already screwed, way I see it.”
“Ma’am, right now, food is food; serve it to me in a Styrofoam bowl or in the hollowed-out horn of a Black Rhino, I don’t care, I’m eating it.” I grab a plastic fork and start digging in, scalding my tongue on the first bite.
“So, how is it?” Martha asks, blowing the steam off a forkful of sagging, slimy looking pasta.
“Friggin’ exquisite.” Katia’s cheeks are stuffed like a chipmunk.
“Well, I’m glad you approve.” Martha licks up some sauce, nods with approval, takes a forkful of ravioli into her mouth, and swallows it in a single bite.
I set my fork down. “This is nice, gotta say. I didn’t think I’d ever be sitting around a table again with good folks, sharing a good meal.”
“This was a rarity for me before the world died.” Katia takes a pull of water. “We ate in front of the television or standing up at the counter. The sit down at the table, share your day stuff, didn’t happen in my house.”
Martha smacks her lips with disapproval. “You kids…you know, that was really the beginning of the end.” She scolds the three of us with a wagging fork. “That slow erosion of the family unit sent the whole damn ship sailing off course. You take away dinner as a family and then, slowly but surely, you lose sight of what the family is all about, the true value of it; it becomes easy to redefine.This country was dead long before the first monster popped its head up.”
“You know, Martha,” Katia sets her fork down and folds her hands, “you’re really showing your age right now.”
The Rabid: Fall Page 6
