Rockfall

by William Allen

  I released a breath, puffing out my cheeks as I did.

  “I don’t care.”

  And I didn’t. This was too important, and I needed to drive home the point now, before Mike did something else that endangered our survival.

  “You realize your stunt put your wife and kids at risk too, don’t you? We don’t have the personnel to hold that place even if Nikki and Patrick make it to the farm. You and Patrick are our only combat veterans. You know how to shoot and move, and you can do all the things that I’ve only played around with. What would happen if your heroism got us locked up? What would Marta do? Think, goddamn it!”

  My anger, frustration and not a little fear boiled over as I ran the scenarios in my head.

  “Calm down, man. I haven’t seen you this pissed off since…”

  I dove into the momentary silence, my anger still radiating like a physical force.

  “Since I buried my wife and son. That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? That’s right. I don’t have them anymore, and I think about them every day.” My voice fell as emotion rose.

  “You still have yours, and I’ve never been jealous. I admit, I should have been a better husband and father. Fact is, I’ve got little enough to live for, right now. I’d gladly spend my life to save Marta and the kids, and if that had been one of them down back there, I wouldn’t have hesitated. But you, you were willing to gamble all our lives on a stranger. Brother, you gotta get your priorities in order before you end up having to bury someone you love.”

  My tirade left me drained, and I could see Mike’s neck getting red like it did when he got really angry.

  “You have no cause to talk to me like I’m some little kid, Bryan. I’m a grown man, and I have the right to make my own decisions.”

  Feeling myself go cold, I growled out my anger and frustration.

  “No, you don’t, Mike. You gave up that right when you said, ‘I do’, my brother. And you got two more reasons waiting in the wings. Marta, Tommy, and Tamara should be your number one fucking priorities.”

  Sighing, I let some of the anger fade from my voice after that. A calculating part of my brain told me I needed to heal this rift for the sake of our little group. For the family. Mike was the way he was because he had a big heart, and he worried about others. I just needed to direct that worry into the proper focus, and he needed to adjust his thinking to the new realities.

  “Mike, you have to think before you act. Do you want to be in county lockup when the world comes crashing down on our sanctuary?”

  Mike looked over sharply at my question, then cut his eyes back to the road.

  “We missed the noon presidential address, dumbass,” I continued, my voice losing some of its edge. “What if the president announced Martial Law? What if he suspended Habeas Corpus? That meteorite just changed all the rules, Mikey. You need to get your mind straight and change with them. I swear, Michael, I can’t do this without you.”

  Mike kept his silence for miles, but when he spoke again, he sounded more serious and less pissy.

  “You might be right about the cops. I don’t know. I do know you are trying to protect me, protect us, from what’s coming. I’m just, well, I’m afraid. I don’t want to become one of those guys. You know, the ones that are willing to sacrifice their humanity to survive.”

  “Don’t worry, Mike. We’ll make it,” I reassured. “Right now, though, let’s listen to the radio and find out what we’ve missed.”

  Turned out, we had plenty to listen to all the way home. Most of it we expected, but we got a few curve balls as well.

  Most importantly, we needed to get our stories straight for when we had to explain our delay to Marta.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  After we cleared the air, the rest of the drive home turned out to be fairly productive. At least, the two of us agreed on a generally benign story to explain our delay (waiting in the parking lot to give our statement, rather than detained inside the store) and left it at that. From there, we agreed listening to the highlights of the president’s speech needed to be done, so I found the same radio station out of Beaumont and we waded through the blather to arrive at the main points. I even took notes on my ever-present legal pad.

  Mike had nailed some things. Price freeze on most consumer goods, but the stores were immediately directed to institute a three-day limit of food items to prevent hoarding. How that was to be determined, no one bothered to explain. Also, the president announced an immediate call up of all National Guard units, then added in a recall for all active and inactive reserves within three days. Also, neither of us were surprised that the FAA was grounding all non-military or government-sponsored flights for the duration of the emergency, or thirty days. This was a routine precaution, but I scoffed at the thirty-day time limit, since it might be months or years before all the crap dissipated from the atmosphere sufficiently to allow for civilian air travel. Mike really seemed worked up over the recall announcement, though.

  “That’s going to piss some people off,” Mike commented grimly. I said I wasn’t getting it, so Mike explained.

  “Calling up the reserves makes sense, but inactive reserves means those folks who already finished the active component of their enlistment and had another period of time, usually four years, where they could be called back if necessary. Usually only done during time of war, but remember that whole Stop-Loss fiasco back in the early days of the Gulf War?”

  “Oh, man, so a kid could be getting ready to graduate from college and then he gets yanked back for another four years?” I exclaimed, familiar with the concept now with Mike’s prodding.

  “Just until he times out for that four years, but yeah, could happen,” Mike clarified. “Course, once they get you back in uniform, good luck getting back out. As for officers, well, that could be a lifetime commitment if you don’t resign your commission correctly. I remember some sixty-year-old captains being recalled back during the last go-round.”

  The moratorium on all bank actions or foreclosures in affected areas and the waiver of all pending taxes for sixty days made sense, except Mike and I agreed these steps amounted to a smoke screen to hide the fact that most people who would be benefiting from the steps were, sadly, most likely dead. Good luck foreclosing on property destroyed or inaccessible. In real estate terms, this was ‘really under water’.

  “Uh, Mike, does your bank have a branch in New Albany?”

  “Yeah, a drive-through over by the Dunkin Donuts. Why?”

  “Because you need to withdraw whatever you can right now, before the they close.”

  “Drive-through is open twenty-four…Oh, you expect the banks to collapse?”

  I nodded sourly, angry at myself for not thinking things through. With all those mortgaged homes nothing more than rubble, I imagined every insurance company and financial institution holding those mortgage-backed securities just became insolvent. At least I’d been saving back cash for years, so the only thing really at risk for me were the accounts held through my office.

  “Well, glad I followed your advice, Bryan,” Mike replied with a note of relief in his voice. “I figure the retirement accounts will all vanish, but I can raid the checking and savings once we get this unloaded. Thankfully, Marta and I have been investing in silver since the price dropped again, and like you, I’ve been squirreling away cash for a while now.”

  I wrinkled my brow, then suggested we hit the ATM on the way home so Mike could withdraw the limit, and then bring Marta back later so she could do the same for her savings account. Mike saw the logic when he remembered it was a weekend and those little kiosks only carried a limited amount of currency to discourage theft.

  While Mike keyed in his password, I kept an eye out for trouble in the parking lot and thought about the last part of the president’s message. He was directing FEMA to set up assistance camps well back from the affected areas, and those areas would be heavily-searched to locate survivors. The evacuations would be mandatory, and he warned
in a stern voice that all looters faced indefinite detention or risked being shot on sight.

  From a coldly logical standpoint, I understood the reasoning behind the Executive Order. However, the bare fact that the federal government could order people from their homes and into camps, even if the dwelling had not been affected by the quakes or tsunami, made me shiver. Maybe there’s more to it than I’m seeing, I pondered, and then it hit me.

  “Ah, hell,” I muttered, and Mike paused long enough in counting his bills to glance my way. “Another problem?”

  “Diablo Canyon. If that thing has gone critical, it cuts California in half. I wonder if that’s the real reason the exclusion zone is so large.”

  “Is that the only one? I thought California hates nukes. Part of the reason they were having rolling brownouts in the summer, right?”

  I shrugged after mentally shuffling through the stacks of otherwise useless trivia in my brain. “They shut down the San Onofre plant, but I don’t know if they moved all the radioactive material to another site or just warehoused it there. The only other nuke plant I can think of that might be affected is in Richland, Washington. Should be far enough inland to avoid the direct effects of the tsunami, but I think it’s built on one of the major rivers there.”

  Mike frowned at the thought. “Yeah, depends on the shape of the river and the proximity to the source. Gah, I was just thinking again about all that farmland that just received a saltwater bath. Those fields will take some time getting back into production, even if they aren’t irradiated.”

  “Something more to think about,” was all I could add to the discussion. Mike knew more about ways to rehabilitate the land than I ever would, since he had an interest in environmental studies dating back to his original biology degree. The real deal, not just the tree-hugging rhetoric that passed for modern discourse on the subject.

  Thinking about growing things got me on the subject of our greenhouse, and the need to get the second one erected at some point. Also, how to keep them heated if commercial power failed, or became so expensive we could no longer rely on it. I kept coming back to the cows, and the piles of manure, but I already knew those would be used to fertilize the beds. I made a note to sit down with Mike and brainstorm, because I knew I was missing something.

  With so much on my mind, I barely noticed when Mike pulled up to the gate and entered his code, but the sound of the metal gate sliding on the tracks drew me out of my daze. I looked over at my brother and gave him one of my petty grins.

  “Sure is easy when somebody else is opening the gate for you, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, and how many weeks did we waste on that silly thing?” he shot back, never willing to admit the utility of the automatic gate.

  “Just keep telling yourself that when the snow is four feet deep and you have to get out and open it manually.”

  “I wouldn’t joke about that,” Mike cautioned. “We might very well see that snow before you know it.”

  Sadly, I wasn’t particularly joking about the snow, and I think Mike knew it. He pulled down the winding driveway and parked at the loading dock. This time, we made short work of the relatively small amount of supplies and within fifteen minutes, the two of us were removing our rain-flecked jackets and wet boots on the back porch.

  Marta was waiting for us, but I managed to cut her off at the pass.

  “There was a shooting at the Tractor Supply, and Mike and I had to stick around and give our statements. Not that we saw anything or even knew what was going on,” I quickly explained.

  Marta’s pale complexion went a little more white as she digested my terse statement. “Already getting bad out there, then?”

  Mike stepped up and embraced his wife in a bear hug. Like me, Mike was well over six feet tall, but he tended to follow our mother’s genetics and got huskier as he aged, so he reminded me of that line from the Magnificent Seven remake, “I believe that bear is wearing people’s clothes”. I topped him by an inch, but he easily outweighed me by thirty pounds, though Mike would insist it was only twenty.

  “I think it was just somebody who panicked,” Mike murmured softly. “We also stopped at the drive-through ATM and I withdrew the limit from the joint accounts. Bryan suggested we go back and take out the maximum for your account as well before they cap withdrawals or freeze our accounts.”

  “You think we need to?”

  I answered the question before Mike could weigh in on the topic.

  “Greece did it, placing tight withdrawal limits, and some claim the measure prevented their banks from collapsing. When we were driving back, I just realized all the banks are going to be in trouble,” I explained simply. “There’s billions, maybe trillions, in mortgages they are never going to be able to collect, and the same is true for the insurance companies being unable to make the necessary payouts. This time, Congress will not be able to bail anybody out, including the depositors. The FDIC wasn’t designed with something like this in mind. I really should have seen this coming.”

  “That’s going to kill the economy, isn’t it?” Marta turned in Mike’s arms, regarding me with a piercing, green-eyed gaze. She saw the truth immediately, and I couldn’t deny it.

  “Eventually, but I’m hoping it is a slow slide. That’s best case, anyway.”

  “We ain’t getting it done standing here jawing about it,” Mike prompted, looking pointedly at his wife.

  “Fine, Mr. Bossy Pants,” Marta retorted. “Let’s get going and leave the kids here to keep an eye on your brother.” Then her voice softening, she continued. “Oh, that reminds me, Nikki finally got a call through. Patrick is working twelve hours on, twelve off, and he can’t leave town for the duration of the emergency. She said they’re not going to make it anytime soon.”

  That certainly put a crimp in our plans, and in more ways than one. With Nikki and Patrick, we had just enough people to get some much-needed work done while keeping the children safe. Five adults could also maintain something of a watch around the clock, at least short term, but no way with just three. And I already knew Mike and Marta would be pulling out soon to return to their jobs, for as long as they lasted. Add to that, I wasn’t happy with the idea of my siblings, nieces and nephew stuck in such major population centers with the clock ticking down to the inevitable rioting.

  “Thanks for letting us know, Marta. Now, take your man back into town and hit that ATM for every nickel you can get. I’ll stay here and play some Scrabble with the kids.”

  “No…!” Tommy cried. “I want to play Call of Duty!”

  “Can we play Princess Parade first?” Tamara asked, her sweet face turned up expectantly.

  I thought about the two options. First person shooter, or a sickly sweet Disney trivia boardgame centered on the Princesses from the various movies? The children graciously allowed me to pick, so of course we played Princess Parade first, and despite his whining, I noticed Tommy won easily. By the time Mike and Marta returned from town, the three of us were knee-deep in fighting computer-generated Nazis.

  Drawn out of the pixilated, digital world, I laid aside my controller and glanced out the window at the sound of the familiar warning chime as the gate opened. I noticed the daylight persisting despite the rain, but the day seemed to be drawing to a close. We’d agreed to revisit our neighbors at seven pm, and I wanted to discuss the topics being considered.

  “How was town?” I asked as soon as Mike and his wife had a chance to shed their rubber boots.

  “Still a lot of activity at the grocery stores, but the local cops appear to have everything under control. No sign of the sheriff or his deputies, though. Thought that was weird. Anyway, I think Marta got the last of the bills out of that machine.”

  I shook my head, then explained a bit about the local dynamics on the law enforcement front.

  “They don’t like each other much, and them guarding the stores might involve danger for no reward, so the sheriff is out. Plus, Landshire’s not well-liked in that town.”


  “I still can’t figure out how a corrupt prick like that keeps getting re-elected,” Marta complained, but Mike answered her before I could. “And his freaking office is in New Albany, too.”

  “Because even though New Albany is the county seat, the other little towns and the rural areas hold more of the population, and Landshire’s influence is stronger there. Outside of New Albany and Reslam, he’s the only law most people ever see,” Mike explained. “He’s been in office over twenty years, and by all accounts, he didn’t start out corrupt. That’s been in the last ten years or so that he’s really started abusing his position, using his deputies or those Sherwood boys to do his dirty work.”

  Then I decided to add my two cents.

  “He really wouldn’t have such a hard time in New Albany if not for the bad publicity from the Polinsky case. That gave the county, and the district judge, a black eye that Judge Wilkins has been unwilling to overlook. Combine that with a chief of police that actually knows how to do his job, and you’ve got the sheriff in hot water.”

  The arrest and subsequent railroading of Rudy Polinsky was a topic that would not be discussed openly at this Husbands get-together, I quickly decided, and warned Mike. That got the conversation back on point as we drifted back towards the living room.

  “Do we talk about the meteorite or not?” I wondered aloud, and Mike shook his head while Marta looked lost in thought. After a moment, Marta joined her husband with a simple, “not yet.”

  “Bryan, just go with the earthquake and volcano parallel for now. Avoid the phrase ‘global warming’ if at all possible. These folks have been bombarded for years with misinformation and political rhetoric, so don’t fall into that trap.”

  “Uh, hello,” I joked, waving a hand, then giving my brother the middle finger. “You do remember I’ve got a brain, right? I’ll hit the history and what they can learn from the examples, then you follow up with the specifics on what to expect from the weather. Anything else?”

  Mike looked slightly embarrassed, and at first I thought it had to do with the ‘global warming’ crack, but he quickly dispelled that error.