by Geo Dell
Mike held his hands high until the crowd quieted. The early morning was cold, light snow fell outside the doors. Most of the people had made it inside and the doors were partially shut, it was already warming quickly in the large space with so many people. A young woman whose name seemed perpetually to leave his mind handed him a slip of paper and he opened it up and looked at it. The silence settled in.
“I've just been told,” he held the note up and turned it back and forth so the crowd could see it. “We are eighteen hundred and fifty-three souls today... And there are still parties coming every day.” The crowd murmured, a few cheered: They were accepting of the news, but it wasn't really what they wanted to hear.
“This is not going to be an easy meeting. We have a lot of territory to cover.” The big doors moved and Mike saw a few more work their way in. Josh and Shar, Craige and Cindy, others he had seen, knew by face, but did not yet know by name. He looked down at the pallets. You are just a tin god standing on a stack of wood, he told himself. And he was. Maybe he had thought he was something better than that for a while, but he wasn't. He looked up and smiled.
“You know, sometimes a person in this position: Responsibility, leadership, can lose their way if they are not careful. If they don't keep an eye on what really matters, what's important.”He paused. “No one here has allowed that to happen. We've suffered a loss. An enormous loss, but we're intact. We're strong, united and we're moving forward.”
The crowd erupted in cheers, and Mike waited for it to subside before he began to speak again.
FOURTEEN
December 21st
New York: Central Park
Early morning
Donita
She had waited long enough, the time was here. There were more than mere thousands behind her now, there were more than a million loyal dead, awaiting commands. She did not lead them all. There were other leaders scattered through the millions, but they would all follow her. So far Harlem had held, but that would change in the next few moments.
She and several thousand followers began to move with purpose through the park to the opposite end where the buses still blocked the way. There would be causalities. Many would pass into permanent death, but they would take Harlem. It was not the only stronghold the breathers had, but there were very few left and none as strong as this one.
Her thoughts made her wonder once more about those in the valley. The ones who did not seem strong at all, yet whenever she thought about them there seemed to be something she had missed. Something that still pulled at her. They were the breather's strongest holdout. She had caught a scent in that valley that had tried to pull her to it, but she had fought it. She knew they were there: When this was finished she would take them. They and whatever compelled her to be there were not part of what drove her. They would have to wait. She could not understand what drove her, how or why it did, anymore than she could understand why the valley and her people pulled her. She had left it behind in her thoughts, on her way to where her other senses had pulled her.
This place, this time; but she had caught a familiar scent on the air this early morning. Briefly, and then it was gone, but there was no mistake, her senses were too heightened for that, it had been that same scent she had first caught from their valley. A scent that still had some sort of power to pull at her, even in the midst of this war. And why was it here now? What did it mean? She had no answers, yet it pulled at her still. It mocked her as though she truly had missed something. Something she would have to pay dearly for.
One of her followers to her left stopped in mid stride and shook her head hard. She stopped herself and within a split second chaos broke out in the surrounding dead. The one who had stopped shook her head once more, took a step forward, and then collapsed to the ground. Donita caught a scent on the air. The same scent that had teased her for so long, but something else with it, something indefinable. Something deeper that whispered danger. Her eyes began to burn, and a split second later as the burning stopped she found herself weakened to the point that she stumbled a few steps before she caught herself.
As she watched, all of her followers began to succumb to whatever this was: More fell, stood once more, only to fall again and move no more. Her eyes rose to the destruction she knew lay beyond, on the opposite shore of the river and the scent that drew her. She took a step in that direction, as if she actually intended to go there and see what might be there, but her legs trembled with the effort and she found herself stopped, sagging against a building to keep herself upright. A few seconds later and she lost the fight and found herself on the ground crawling toward the river and whatever might be there. Something in the river called her, forced her to regain her knees and then her feet. She staggered onward as her army fell dead around her.
New York: Harlem
Johnny Red watched the dead fall before they could even get close to the buses that blockaded their way into Harlem The machine gun he manned had yet to fire a single shot. Dollar wandered over shortly after they had begun to fall and told him to sit tight when they came. Now it looked like they wouldn't be coming, at least not these dead. They had all fallen. Some had struggled briefly, but most had not. Standing one second, sprawled upon one another a second later. Johnny Red watched for a few moments longer before he slung the Machine gun on his back and stood along with dozens of others, staring out into the park from atop the buses.
Dollar raised his voice to be heard above the spontaneous cheers that went up. He had lugged one of the huge rubber hoses up on top of one of the buses. He turned to the crowd now. “There are more hoses! People! Get them hoses. Hose them down good!”
Johnny Red had a hose of his own nearby. The hoses were the first line of defense. A few minutes before they had been about to start spraying the dead with the gasoline: They had stopped when the dead had begun to fall on their own. As he picked up his hose and dragged it through a gap in the buses, the hose that Dollar was manning from atop one of the buses began to spray.
It took virtually no time to completely douse the dead with the gasoline. They moved sluggishly, twitched, tried to rise and crawl away, only to collapse back to the ground. Only once the hoses were dragged far back, were the Molotov cocktails launched through the strangely quiet air. The dead went up with a huge roar of fire, a pressure that caused ears to pop, and a rush of hot air blew back into Harlem past the buses.
Within minutes the park itself was burning and the heat was already dangerously high behind the buses. Johnny Red watched, frozen, as small streams of burning liquid began to race across the roadway heading for the line of buses, but even as he thought to panic it was too late. The flames found the buses and caught. A minute later Johnny Red and dozens of other people began running through the streets of Harlem, looking for another way out. Behind them the tanker they had used to pump the gasoline blew up. The explosion knocked Johnny Red from his feet, and for a few seconds afterwards he lay amid the clutter of brick, wood and glass and wondered if he was dead: If this was what it felt like. A second after that one of those running by had grabbed his arm and dragged him to his feet and he had got his legs working again, running with the others as the greasy black ball of smoke from the tanker rose high into the air over Harlem.
The OutRunners
On The Road
The shock from the explosions that came across the river could be felt inside the truck as it crept slowly through the ruined city following their old tracks to get back out. Billy sat with Pearl's head in his lap, she murmured in her sleep, and Billy smoothed the hair from her brow and kissed her forehead. “It's okay, Baby. It's okay,” he told her quietly. She murmured once more and then fell back into sleep. Billy watched her a few seconds longer and then looked up at the monitors. It looked like most of the city across the river was burning.
“Was that it?” he asked quietly.
“It seemed like the city blew up all at once,” Beth said from her seat beside Bear.
“They burn or the antido
te gets them. I don't care which,” Bear said. He glanced at the other monitors that also showed Manhattan burning and then turned his attention back to road.
Across the river
Donita
She had made it to the river before her great strength had deserted her. She was crawling now, pulling herself forward with her arms somehow. She pushed as hard as she could with her feet and suddenly she was looking at the water of the river. Sluggish, oily, cold. Flames reflected brightly on its surface.
Her strength was almost gone, but she dug in with her fingers, causing them to snap as she forced them to pull her body past the balancing point, and suddenly she was there, her body tipping, falling into the water.
There seemed to be little transition between the world of air and the world of water. One minute she was above the water and the next she was weightless, floating face down, slowly turning over onto her back in the current, and then sinking into the depths of the river: Watching the lights above dim, dim, and then wink out.
The Nation
January 10th
Candace's Journal
It has been a rough time for us here through the new year, but maybe things are going to settle down for a while.
I have not written in far too long, but it has seemed to be one thing after another thing and there has been no time, yet when I hold the two of you in my arms I think of this journal and why I keep it, why I started it. This is supposed to be for the two of you. To help you understand us when we're gone, maybe even while we're here. None of us have decided on that yet, and all of us have put so much personal stuff in these journals that we wouldn't be okay with allowing just anyone to read them. I wouldn't, but this is for you two to read, and I hope brothers and sisters that come along too, somewhere in the future.
We had a service for Bob, Arlene and the baby back on the 9th. The thaw was on a few days after their deaths and Tom and Craige had managed to dig the graves at the falls: We had already buried them, but we thought that was best. Nearly everyone showed up, maybe it was everyone, we're too big to know.
We have a traveling peddler that we have been in touch with. He is on his way here, should arrive any day now. He is bringing trade items, and another doctor to replace Steve Choi. He and Joe have decided to leave this spring. I am not positive of the reasons, but I suspect it may have to do with Jessie Stone and the others.
We still don't know what happened with Jessie, Janna or David. The consensus is that they made their way out somehow in the night, past the guards.
It makes no sense to me. The guards are there to keep people out. Why would they feel the need to sneak past them? I don't have the answers.
We have heard nothing from the Outrunners, and many have written them off. I don't know what to think, but Mike and some others on the council are putting together a second team to leave this spring. If Bear, Beth, Billy and Pearl come back they will still be the primary team, but we will keep the second team. The big question is what happened in Watertown? What did they find? What were they able to do? We know nothing, and not knowing makes us question even harder.
We had four positions to fill on the council, Bob, Janna, Steve, and Arlene and they have been filled. Another sign to me when Steve immediately resigned when the meeting was no more than a few minutes old. Bonny and Bobby took seats: Tom and Chloe the last two. I think they were all good choices, a mix of new blood and old, maybe what we need to rebuild our spirit.
Tom has also taken over all of Bob' farm duties. He is not the do-it-all man that Bob was, so several others have stepped up to fill his shoes. It feels wrong that he could be gone. I have accepted it, but it feels wrong. There were rumors. I write them here because they may lend some sense to all of it. Janna and David had been in an affair, possibly Bob knew it. Some think it killed him, He was distracted enough by it that he made a mistake and fell to his death, but what is the point of assigning blame? What good does it do? Does it solve anything to be mad at them? I don't know. I can't speak to it, but I know my heart, and I know if I lost Mike or Amy I would not be able to think clearly. I hate to think it though, so I have put it away.
The people that know what happened have gone, I don't know if they will ever be back, and so it will do me no good to wonder and make myself sick with it. And life is too fast. A day goes by and the world changes. Another and you are becoming someone else with responsibilities you never had or thought of. Another passes and you are no longer yourself. Change comes, and it does its job well.
We have had offers for Steve, Sandy and Susan, as if we owned or controlled their fates. We simply put them directly in touch.
Nearby communities we are in touch with: Alabama Island. West River. Memphis Crossing. Millers Post, and Several unnamed trading posts or settlements. Some come and go, change names, leadership, but those are the ones that seem stable, the ones we will be trading with.
Alabama Island wants Steve, and they are not the only ones, but they are the biggest and they have the most to offer him. I feel all of them will be gone by spring. Steve for sure, Sandy and Susan most likely. Whatever there was that was broken between her and me is still broken. She ignores me completely now. Maybe another place is best. I only hope that Rollie arrives with the new doctor before we have no doctors at all.
And the part I have to deal with. The reason I would never let anyone read these journals except the two of you. And I would prefer that be after I am gone: Amy and I.
It's not like what happened with Janna and David, but how different is it? Is it only me wanting it to be something else? I can't answer that. I am too close to it to see it clearly. I may never see it clearly. I can only say I love her and she loves me. Neither of us are willing to give the other up, but I am unwilling to give Mike up either. Right now I feel guilty about it. I skipped a page and wrote this... I have to decide somewhere in the future whether you should know this or not. I guess if you are reading it you know my choice was to leave the page in.
The Outrunners
January 15th
East Of Home
Bear flipped the helmet visor back down and ran a bead to connect the two pieces of steel that formed the last extension for the trailer sides. The other three corners had been welded, the frame completed. He drew the welding rod downward and closed up the seam. He stopped and tipped the helmet visor up to look, then removed it and set it aside.
“All yours, Billy,” he said. Billy took only a few minutes to add the 14 gauge expanded steel sheets he had cut and clamp it in place down the length of the side. Bear dropped the helmet back onto his head, pulled the visor down, and began tack welding the sheets to the frame.
He tacked a bead every two feet on the sheets, once they were all stable he removed the clamps and spot welded beads every six inches to secure the sheets to the steel frame work. The 14 gauge expanded steel sheets were like heavy duty fencing. The sheets were made from whole sheets of steel. A diamond pattern was stamped out of the sheets, leaving what looked like a chain link fence pattern on the sheet. They could be seen through, yet they were strong enough to hold things securely. Animals, freight, it didn't matter. Bear finished up, set his helmet aside, and jumped down off the empty trailer. He walked around it as Beth and Pearl were doing, appraising both his welding and Billy's plan.
The entire trailer, starting from the frame up, had been built with structural oval tubing, square tube steel, angle steel and plate steel for the floor and rear gate. The expanded steel covered the sides, sitting in its own frame of angle steel. Flat quarter inch plate steel made up the floor, welded to the cross pieces that provided the underlying support. The rear gate came down to fashion a ramp up onto the trailer. Operated by a small winch, it could drop down in a matter of a minute and offered access to the entire trailer at a reasonable angle. The gate was reinforced with square steel tubing and quarter inch plate steel.
The entire trailer had taken Billy a few hours to work out in his head. It had taken Pearl and Beth a half hour to find a
generator and welder and get them working. It had taken both Bear and Billy less than a day to weld it all up. Bear welding as Billy cut the steel and clamped it. They had borrowed the axles from a heavy duty donor flat bed trailer. The end result was a trailer that was seven feet wide, thirty two feet long with six foot sides, dual rear axles, and 35 inch tires which gave it about 15 inches of ground clearance, enough to travel over most obstacles. It was longer, and sat higher than any trailer Bear had ever seen, and it would hold more than anything they might have been able to find on a lot somewhere. It was overbuilt to last and take the beating it was bound to get.
The tires were thirty five inch rock-crawlers. They had not specifically needed rock-crawlers, just something tall enough to match the trucks' height, but the rock-crawlers added their own edge to the trailer, and they were heavy ply tires that should be able to roll over whatever came along. The truck certainly had the power to pull the trailer over obstacles, the tires just needed to be able to clear those same obstacles.
This was the fifth day of their layover in the suburbs of Nashville. They had set off canisters in every city of any size they had come across. Bear knew it wasn't necessary, but the urge to speed things along kept him on the course. None of them knew how long it took to begin to work, but they trusted in the knowledge that it would work. They hadn't hung around New York long enough to see the close up results, but they had watched Weston die with their own eyes, and he had not come back from that death. Rex did its job. The plagues of the dead were all but over. It was a just a matter of time.
They had come here to fill their lists. Ironic, but they were finally at what had started out to be the soul purpose of this trip. The trailer would help them fulfill all that had been asked for, even though they only had one truck capable of making the trip back into The Nation at this time of year.
