The day after: An apocalyptic morning

by Jessy Cruise

  Skip looked at them in surprise. "You mean Maggie is here? Right now? She's been here this entire time?"

  Paula nodded. "A little liberty on our part," she told him. "We knew you would agree to this, so we worked to avoid all possible delays in the initiation."

  "It helps keep people from changing their minds," Christine put in.

  "You two are conniving," Skip said, not disrespectfully.

  Maggie appeared in the doorway, dressed in jeans and a tight shirt that accented her unnatural breasts nicely. She had a nervous, shy smile upon her face, as if she wasn't completely sure what she was doing here. She hesitated just inside the room, looking from face to face uncertainly. She seemed to be trying to avoid looking at the erect pole that was being stroked by the two women although her eyes kept flitting to it.

  "Come on in, Mags," Christine said, waving her into the room. "Skip has agreed to bring you in on a trial basis. How does that sound?"

  "Umm..." she said, stammering, her face flushing with embarrassment. "It sounds... uh... you know?"

  "We know," Maggie told her. "Now come on in and get a piece of this. You know you want it."

  She stepped further into the room, her steps that of a child learning to walk. Her eyes took a longer look at Skip's erection, not flitting away this time.

  "Welcome to the family," Skip, who was a little nervous himself, told her. "You come highly recommended."

  The next day dawned with the Auburn guard force minus three more of its members. None of the three had committed any act that could be construed as criminal or negligent - all had in fact been among the best of those that Madeline had trained after the revolution. Their crime had been their friendship and support of Madeline and their criticism - spoken to friends but overheard by Jessica's cronies - of the earlier removals, particularly Madeline herself. The reason for their removal that had been given by Jessica was "questionable loyalties" and "possible seditious acts being contemplated". They were replaced by members of Jessica's clique, none of whom had been through the training course and two of whom had never even handled a firearm before.

  By 10:30 that morning the first death attributed to Jessica's takeover of the guard detail was logged. Peggy Linscott, one of the untrained women, accidentally shot Regina Navas with her M-16 rifle while trying to get the feel of it. She had been examining the various levers and switches of the gun as it lay on her lap with her finger inside the trigger guard. When she pulled the barrel of the weapon up to get a closer look at the safety switch, the weapon went off, sending a 5.56 millimeter bullet five feet across the bunker where it struck Regina - another one of the new guards - in the side of the head. She never knew what hit her.

  Peggy was not punished for her accident. She was not even removed from the detail. Despite the fact that she was now a nervous wreck, racked with guilt over what had happened, she was told to stand the rest of the watch and be more careful. Regina was buried just outside of town in an unmarked grave that was dug by former members of the guard detail.

  Word of these events was brought to Madeline in the high school building by other exiles from the guard force that had contact with townspeople outside of Jessica's circle. Jessica had been foolishly of the opinion that the incident could be kept quiet. Madeline did nothing for the moment. Though saddened by the useless death, she knew that it would most likely not be in vain. She kept washing her towels and hanging them on the overburdened lines in the gymnasium until nearly 2:00 PM when the moment she had been waiting for finally occurred.

  "Madeline?" a voice said from the doorway. "Can I have a word with you for a minute?"

  Madeline pulled her hands from the soapy water and looked up to see Kathy Kingsley standing in the doorway. Kathy had once been a nurse in Sutter Auburn Hospital (before the entire side of town it had been in was buried under billions of tons of mud). She had been off work on the day of the comet and had been traded back and forth between husbands no less than six times during the reign of the men. Kathy was in charge of their medical supplies and had trained up several other women to help her take care of any sickness or injury that occurred. She was neither a friend of Jessica's nor of Madeline's. She was in fact very apolitical as were most of the town's women. She had no wish to get involved in any of the movings or shakings that made the town run, preferring instead to simply do her job and live her life.

  "Hi, Kathy," Madeline said, looking at her, keeping her expression carefully bland. "What brings you down here to the slave galley?"

  Kathy cracked no smile at her joke. "I need to talk to you," she said, walking closer but taking a quick look behind her first to see if she were being observed by anyone. "It's very important."

  "Well come on in," Madeline said. "I'm about due for my break anyway."

  She came closer, obviously very nervous about being seen, and stopped just before the pool of soapy water containing the previous day's towels. "I'm here," she said, "at the request of some of the other women in town."

  "Oh?"

  She nodded. "I'm not a leader or a radical or anything like that," she said. "Usually my policy is to keep well out of things. Do you understand?"

  "I do," Madeline told her. "But things are different now, aren't they?"

  "They are," she agreed, taking another glance towards the doorway. "Look," she said. "Some of the women asked me if I would come talk to you about... well... Jessica."

  "I see," she said, continuing to keep her expression normal. "And what did they want you to talk to me about?"

  "She's crazy," Kathy said. "She's drunk half of the time and she's popping pills the other half of the time. We all know that she is the one that brought in the revolution and all and we're really grateful to her for that... but... she's not handling being a leader very well."

  "Oh really?" Madeline said sarcastically, letting her expression slip just a bit.

  "Everyone supported her at first," Kathy said. "She organized us and helped us get rid of the men. But now she's taking all of the girls who know what they're doing off of the guard detail. She replaced you and a lot of your people just because you spoke out against her. She's torturing the men that are left. Granted, a lot of those assholes deserved to be mistreated after what they put us through - hell, I should know that better than anyone - but she's gone over the edge about it. I was in charge of trying to treat that poor slob that they killed with the crowbar. I also treated all of the others. No one deserves to have that done to them. And anyone who condones that sort of activity is not someone we want leading us."

  "I agree," Madeline said. "And I tried to talk to her about it. That's what got me here."

  "She's not fit to lead this town," Kathy said. "Something needs to be done about her. And quickly. Pretty soon the men will be back in town and we'll have to fight them. It will be a tough fight even with everyone trained highly and ably led. It will be a pushover with those incompetent boobs we have now. And with each day that passes, the men get closer and closer to town and the guard detail gets less and less efficient. Hell, Linda Swenson told me that guard position four was kept unmanned all night last night because all of Jessica's guards were at her little party."

  "I heard that one as well," Madeline said. "But why are you telling me this? What is it that you want me to do about it? I'm in the Goddamn laundry detail."

  "We want you to do something," Kathy said. "And we want you to do it fast. And the reason that I'm here is to tell you that whatever it is that you do, you'll have the support of the ones like me."

  "The ones like you?"

  "The ones that don't ordinarily give a damn what happens. The ones that aren't in her little club. We make up most of the town you know and in this case, we do give a damn." She looked at Madeline firmly. "Get rid of her. You'll have our support. I haven't talked to all of them but I've talked to most of the leaders of the various little cliques we have among ourselves. We want to stay free and in control of our own destinies. We don't want things to go back to the way they were.
With Jessica in charge and doing whatever she pleases, that's going to happen, either through the men or through her as she gets her hooks a little further into us. When push comes to shove, you'll have our vote for whatever action you see fit to take. Whatever action, do you understand?"

  Madeline smiled a little. "Yes," she said. "I believe I understand."

  Madeline wasted no time. She left the laundry room shortly after Kathy's departure, abandoning her tubful of towels and her lines. She made her way through the bowels of the high school building and quickly rounded up Darlene, who was working her way through the mound of breakfast dishes with the aid of several other women.

  "Darlene," she said, waving her over. "I need a word with you."

  Darlene excused herself and trotted over. Words were exchanged for nearly five minutes, during which Darlene's expression went from misery to shock to barely controlled restraint.

  "Are you in?" Madeline asked her when she was done.

  "I'm in," she said fearfully. "But are you sure this will work?"

  "It'll work," she assured her. "Will any of your dish detail help us?"

  "All of them will help us," she answered. "No doubt about it. All of them are here because they crossed Jessica in some way."

  "Bring them over here."

  Darlene brought them over. Ten minutes later they were all involved.

  A few minutes later Darlene, Madeline, and their new recruits slipped out through an unguarded side door and began fanning out into the town. They visited the firewood detail, the garbage detail, the hot water detail, and several other job sites that were full of women that had been assigned there because of their problems with Jessica. Many of the women they talked to were the former guards that had been removed from their positions and had no problems agreeing to what Madeline was proposing. All of them knew that it was time.

  Thirty minutes later, just as the guards inside of the administration building were discovering that a great many workers had wandered off, a group of thirty women led by Madeline herself came walking up the street through the rain. They approached in a loose formation, moving slowly, not a single one carrying any weapons of any kind. They came up the walkway and towards the main steps of the building. It is perhaps a testament to the ineffectiveness of the guard force that they were not noticed until they were less than fifty feet from the building.

  When they were noticed however, the two guards out front rushed out to meet them, calling for reinforcements on their portable radios. Within seconds two more teams of guards - one from inside the building, one from the outside back of the building - came running over, their automatic weapons clanking, their faces fearful. The two groups met at the bottom of the concrete steps, the guards all pointing weapons at the crowd, the crowd only standing impassively.

  "What is the meaning of this?" demanded Brandy Olsen, the twenty-eight year old leader of the perimeter guards. She was one of the original guards trained by Madeline after the revolution and one of Jessica's inner circle. She had used Jessica's influence several times in the past to keep from being assigned to night shift posts and to get days off for the parties. She had in fact been one of the women to drive a crowbar into Greg Rollins a few nights before. Her M-16 was pointed directly at Madeline's face, the barrel trembling a little with motion transmitted from her shaky hands. Her finger was curled tightly around the trigger, perhaps exerting about half of the pull necessary to make the weapon fire.

  Madeline didn't even look at the finger, didn't acknowledge the gun in any way. "This," she said strongly and firmly, "is a military takeover of the town."

  Brandy looked at her incredulously. Behind her, the other guards all tittered a little. "You have got to be kidding," she said.

  "I don't kid," Madeline told her. "We've come to take Jessica into custody. Stand aside and let us enter the building."

  "You are out of your damn mind," Brandy said. "How dare you leave your work station in the middle of the day. How dare you lead these other women up here and spout crap like that. This group will disband immediately and return to work or all of you will be locked up until Jessica deals with you."

  Everyone held firm, continuing to stare back at the guards.

  "Did you hear me?" Brandy demanded. "Disperse immediately. You're all already in a lot of trouble. Don't make it worse on yourself."

  "What are you going to do if we don't disperse?" Madeline asked her calmly. "Are you going to shoot us down like dogs? We're unarmed, Brandy."

  "If that's what it takes, I'll do it," she said. "Don't bring us to that point. Now disperse!"

  "There will be no dispersal," Madeline said. "We've come for Jessica and we will have her."

  "We will shoot you," Brandy warned. "Don't think that we won't!"

  "Oh, but that's exactly what I think," Madeline said. "I don't think that you will shoot anyone, Brandy and I know that most of those women behind you won't shoot either." She turned her gaze on the rest of the guards, looking each one in the eye in turn. "None of you have become so dehumanized that you're willing to gun down unarmed women, have you?"

  "Don't try us," Brandy said. "I'm warning you."

  "No," Madeline said, "I'm warning you. Put your weapons down and stand aside. You all know as well as I do that Jessica is not fit to rule this town. Even you, Brandy, even you who goes to her little parties and helps her torture the men, even you know that we're in a world of trouble with her at the controls. She's a madwoman and she needs to be removed. You can shoot me if you want, you can kill all of us if you want, but that won't change the fact and it certainly won't keep Jessica from being removed from power. My companions and I are liberators and we have the opinion of the entire town on our side - the entire town minus Jessica and her small circle of cronies that is. If any of you shoot any of us, I can guarantee that you will stand trial for murder once Jessica is gone. And as you know, we have but one penalty for murder here - hanging."

  "Jessica is not going anywhere," Brandy said. "She is the leader of this town and she will continue to be the leader of this town. And I will shoot anyone who tries to enter that building without her permission and so will the other guards!"

  "No," said a voice from behind her. It belonged to Caroline Mickhews, one of the few women still friendly with Madeline that was left on the guard force. "We will not shoot." She lowered her weapon, allowing the barrel to point at the ground. "Maddie is right. Jessica needs to be removed. We all know it and I will not help stop them."

  Brandy took her eyes off of Madeline long enough to glare at Caroline. "I might've expected this out of you," she spat at her. "Unload your weapon and take it inside immediately. You are relieved of your duties as of this moment."

  "I won't shoot either," said another voice, this one belonging to Linda Weatherly, who was a recent replacement for one of Madeline's people. "Things have gone too far around here."

  "You fucking coward!" Brandy accused hotly. "You're relieved as well!"

  "Coward?" she returned, lowering her own weapon. "You call me a coward? I cut the throat of that raping asshole that lived in my house in the middle of the night. I cut his throat and then I helped take down the guards in front of the community center without a gun! Don't you call me a coward just because I won't shoot women who are only doing what needs to be done!"

  "Damn right," said another woman from behind her - yet another replacement for Madeline's people. She lowered her weapon as well. "Let Maddie in there. It needs to be done."

  This left two women besides Brandy herself who were still pointing guns. These final two were like Brandy, Madeline-trained but Jessica loyal, frequent recipients of her favors. They wavered uneasily as all eyes turned to them.

  "Well girls?" Maddie asked them. "It's time to make a choice now, isn't it? Who are you going to follow?"

  "Stand by me," Brandy told them in a threatening, nervous tone. "Remember who your leader is. Stand by me and we'll nip this little uprising right in the bud."

  At that point thing
s might very well have held at an impasse if not for the appearance of the townspeople. Gathered and told to assemble by other members of Madeline's conspiracy, they came from every direction, walking in groups of ten and twenty, women of all shapes and sizes, many with small children in tow. They formed up just behind the two opposing groups, standing there silently, their eyes trained on the spectacle before them. In all more than four hundred of them showed up.

  "All of you!" Brandy yelled as she saw them. "Return to your homes immediately! This does not concern you!"

  "It does concern us!" A voice yelled out. It was the voice of Kathy, who was standing near the front of the crowd. "It concerns every last one of us. These women are acting in our name and they have our support for their actions. Let them pass!"

  "They are attempting to unseat the lawful leader of this town!" Brandy yelled back at them. "It will not be allowed."

  Madeline ignored the crowd behind her. Instead, she continued to stare at the two guards next to Brandy. "What's it going to be, girls?" she asked them almost quietly. "You can see what's happening here. Which side are you going to be on?"

  One by one they lowered their weapons down, seeming almost relieved to be doing it. A murmur of approval erupted in the crowd at their actions. "I'm on the right side," said one.

  "As am I," said the other.

  Brandy was actually trembling now as she found herself standing alone. She gave a murderous glare to Madeline. "This isn't over," she said. "You still have to get by me."

  "It is over," said Caroline. There was a clank as her weapon came back up to position. Only this time it was pointing at Brandy. "Lower that rifle, right now."

  "This is treason!" Brandy yelled.

  "Call it what you want," Linda Weatherly said, bringing her weapon to bear on her former supervisor as well. The three other guards quickly followed suit. "But put down the rifle. It's over, Brandy."