by Lopez, Rob
“And you say he was unarmed?” said Major Connors.
“You know he was, Mr. Connors. You took his gun off him yourself. If he still had it, he could have defended hisself, but he couldn’t and now he’s dead.”
Major Connors gazed up at the Myers Park clubhouse, then down to Barbara, the wizened crone who stood with her hands on her hips.
“He was carrying an automatic firearm, Barbara. I had to take it off him. It’s the law.”
“It was murder, Mr. Connors, and he didn’t do nothing. What’s the law say about that?”
Major Connors turned to a gentleman standing next to him. In contrast to Connors’ squat, robust form, the gentleman had a leaner, more athletic build, with a trace of Santa Monica tan still on his skin, though whatever manicures or designer suits he might once have had were destroyed by the ravages of a simpler life. “Sounds like a hanging offense to me, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Jeffries?”
Mr. Jeffries didn’t appear too sure about that. “Governor Rawlings wouldn’t …”
“Wouldn’t what?” interjected Connors. “Governor Rawlings is dead, so he wouldn’t anything now, would he? You’re the lieutenant governor. That makes you acting governor.”
Jeffries swallowed. “Yes, but it doesn’t make me God.”
Major Connors slapped a heavy hand on Jeffries’ shoulder. It might have been meant to reassure him, but the effect was to bring him down to Connors’ height. “You’re the only one in charge of both the executive and legislative branches of state government. You’re also commander in chief of the National Guard, plus any militia you see fit to raise. I’d say that puts you on a par with God right now. At least in this state, don’t you think?”
“That doesn’t mean I can do what I like. A fair trial is called for, at least.”
Connors gave him a pitying look. “This is a State of Emergency. Habeas corpus has been suspended.”
“That only covers detention.”
“Your powers cover more than that. And where would you detain anyone anyway?” Connors made a show of looking around, as if to prove his point. “Our penal system’s gone. So is respect for the law. If we want to drag this great nation of ours back from the brink, we need to act. And act hard. You’re called upon to show leadership. If you’re not willing to do that, step down and we’ll elect somebody else.”
Jeffries wavered. Standing nearby were the three other special forces operators, gazing at him with undisguised condescension, as if daring him to quit. Barbara too looked at him, her bitter, expectant face demanding action. Jeffries straightened himself up a little.
“You’re right. We need to see justice done. But I insist on a trial. This country was built upon the rights of its citizens. If we are to build it back up, we need to remember our roots.”
“I want to see the bitch hang,” stated Barbara. “She done murder here. I want to tighten the rope myself.”
Jeffries stared at her.
“Thank you for that, Barbara,” cut in Connors. “Rest assured, it’ll all be sorted out.”
“I want to see her legs jerking when she dangles,” spat Barbara. “I want to see her face go blue and her eyes popping out of her head.”
“Again, thank you,” said Connors, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her around. “Now run on back to the others.”
“I want her deader than dead.”
“Uh huh.”
Connors nodded to his crew, who escorted her away.
“The will of the people, eh?” remarked Connors as he watched her go.
Jeffries continued to stare, shocked by the character of one of his constituents. “We have to do this right, Major Connors.”
“Of course, but first we have to get you to Asheville. There, you can set up your government.”
Jeffries looked up to the clubhouse. “Why don’t we just set up here? This looks like a pretty good place.”
“This is a radiation zone. We don’t want to be here.”
“Wait,” said Jeffries, turning to look at Connors. “Didn’t you just send those people here? Why?”
“Because they’re not the kind of people you’d want anywhere else. Come on.”
They walked up the slope and past the clubhouse.
“You’ve got to have a little more faith in yourself,” said Connors. “You used to be a take-charge guy. We need some of that no-bull attitude now.”
“This isn’t the environment I’m used to working in. I’m still a little … daunted by the scale of what we have to do. I mean, look at it. When I was in office, I had advisers and lawyers I could call on, and civil service staff who knew the ropes. I never had to create something from nothing.”
“But this is better, right? How many programs did you try to get running, only to find you couldn’t get them through the General Assembly? Or some civil rights group would protest, and some senator would insist on watering it down with an amendment, and then you’d get told the state couldn’t afford to implement the program for at least five years, and your successor would likely veto it anyway.”
“Those are the checks and balances of democracy.”
“They’re a pain in the ass, is what they are. And you’ve got to quit showing your doubts in front of people like Barbara. These people have to think you know what you’re doing.”
“I’m not good at faking it.”
“You did okay with the cameras on your face during that toilet debate. I mean, jeez, I wouldn’t have been able to keep a straight face for that.”
“That was different. I knew how the media would twist anything I said, so I had to be cautious. Hell, I had party advisers coaching me on what to say and, more importantly, what not to say.”
“It ain’t so different now. It’s all theater, and every public appearance is a show. You have to put on a good show, Jeff.”
“Is that all you think this is? A show?”
“When there’s people you’re trying to convince? Sure. And there’s people out there who need convincing. Hell, they want to be convinced, so all you need to do is put that shit-eating smile on your face and tell them everything’s going to be okay, because you understand the problem and you’ve got the solution.”
“I don’t have the solution.”
“You’ve got it, we’ve all got it. This ain’t so hard. Like you said, the country’s built on a lot of things, and it was primarily built on overcoming exactly the same problems we’ve got now. Get with the program. This is just a rerun.”
Jeffries stopped and gazed at Connors. Out in the parking lot were four horses. Connors’ special-forces cadre were already mounted. On the street was an old farm tractor towing a flatbed trailer, piled high with provisions and boxes. A line of old cars stretched back down the street, all with stores strapped to their roofs. On the trailer and in the vehicles, a multitude of faces looked out. Soldiers, cops and national guardsmen peppered the population, and every vehicle flew a version of the American flag, large or small.
“I don’t understand your confidence, sometimes,” said Jeffries. “Is it real, or are you putting on a show for me too?”
Connors halted and turned slowly. With a smile on his face, he stepped closer to Jeffries and tapped him lightly on the chest with the back of his hand.
“Just get with the program, okay?”
Jeffries couldn’t help but flinch. While the smile was broad and the posture easy, Connors’ eyes were as hard as flint.
7
Josh stalked carefully through the trees, eyes darting up to the branches in search of squirrels. He was off the track that wound up the mountain, but apart from Scott to one side and his father on the other, he saw no sign of life other than the birds flying high over the canopy. All other small game was absent, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why.
Every third tree seemed to have a bullet hole in it.
Whoever had lived nearby had cleaned out the wildlife in this neck of the woods, and judging from the traces of camps and the abandoned, hastily
built shelters, a fair amount of the county’s population had attempted to eke out a living in the shadow of the South Mountains State Park. An isolated group of hills away from the Appalachians, it was the first port of call for refugees who were smart enough not to follow the herd along Highway 74 through Shelby and Forest City.
Smart as it was, the pleasant mountain park couldn’t sustain that many people, and there were others living here already who knew the mountains better and relied on hunting to keep their larders stocked. Clashes between locals and newcomers were inevitable, as Josh’s own group soon discovered.
Barely a mile had gone by since leaving Gastonia without them finding some isolated settlement at an intersection, the inhabitants unhappy at the sight of strangers. The narrow back-roads were easily blocked, and nobody was willing to let the convoy pass. Some even went so far as to fire warning shots before Josh’s father got anywhere near the barricades. The convoy would turn around to try another route, only to be turned around again. The closer they got to South Mountains, the harder it got.
A crack sounded in the distance and Josh froze. He was carrying an air rifle, but the gunshot he heard was definitely from a more substantial firearm. He moved to unsling his own Ruger .22 from his shoulder, then noticed that Scott and Rick had both dropped to the deck. Josh followed suit and all three listened to the resulting silence.
Josh laid down the air rifle and sighted along the Ruger. Bracken was only just beginning to sprout in little green curls from the carpet of brown leaves, so visibility in the woods was good, but there was no movement to detect. Josh couldn’t tell how far away the shot had been. He wasn’t familiar with hill-country, and the walk up the slope had already tired him out, his heart-rate high and his shoulder aching from where the rifle strap chafed. The fact that his father and Scott listened passively rather than springing into action indicated that the shot maybe wasn’t close enough to disturb them much.
Josh took the moment to enjoy the rest.
His empty stomach growled, and when Rick signaled for them to continue, Josh switched back to the pellet gun, looking out again for potential food. The tough and chewy squirrel meat, lightly fried or grilled, was something to look forward to. He might even get to bag something bigger like a raccoon, which so far he’d only seen in documentaries, cartoons and the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Thankfully, he wasn’t likely to see one armed with an impossibly sized, big-ass rocket-launcher, but it’d be funny if he could.
Wouldn’t stop him from eating the damned thing, though. Even the sight of a bear would be welcome for that.
They tramped uphill until they reached the edge of the treeline. The bare slopes rising to the hilltop showed there wasn’t much else worth climbing for. Not even a jackrabbit. The setting sun silhouetted the nearby hills, all equally bare, and barely discernible plumes of smoke, like ghost marks on the horizon, rose vertically into the air, showing the location of the particularly cantankerous settlement that had already turned them away, though not before putting a bullet hole in the Humvee. Scott had been keen to pay them another visit and teach them the errors of their ways – preferably with a little ballistic therapy – but Rick dissuaded him from escalating it further. Josh personally would have liked to see Scott get it on, as it sucked to be treated like a pariah by those goons, but time was pressing and their ammunition wasn’t unlimited. And while his father’s point was a boring one, it was true that there wasn’t much to be gained in looking for a fight simply to vent some anger.
Empty handed, they descended the slope, the gloom in the woods growing deeper. On the way, they passed through an abandoned chicken farm, the long sheds barren and the feed silos depleted. Josh guessed that most of the chickens had been taken by the surrounding settlements, which was maybe why they were so defensive. Judging from the condition of some of the locals at the barricades, though, it was possible they’d eaten them all already. According to Chuck, the birds were so used to being filled with antibiotics that they wouldn’t have lasted long before succumbing to diseases.
“They ain’t as tough as your traditional farmyard chicken,” he’d said. “Kind of like most of us, really.”
The vehicles were parked on a sloping gravel track, and the multicolored tents had been pitched among the trees, near a creek. Josh could see some effort had been made to camouflage the gaudy dwellings, but they still stood out from their surroundings. Harvey had dug a cooking pit for their kills, and he was disappointed to see that the hunting party had returned with none.
“Jerky and canned peaches again,” said Josh, propping his rifles against a tree.
“That’s a luxury we don’t have,” said Harvey. “Peaches are gone.”
“Got kale,” said Chuck, adding kindling to a pile. Behind him, Lizzy and Daniel carried armfuls of twigs, dropping them gratefully by the cooking pit.
“Yay,” said Josh without enthusiasm.
“Is it worth even lighting the fire?” asked Scott.
“We can boil water,” said Rick. “We need to top off our containers. No telling what tomorrow might bring.”
“And what will tomorrow bring?” asked Harvey. “Done a lot of running around today and we haven’t gotten very far.”
“No. It’s been a little disappointing,” admitted Rick. “Prospects around here don’t look too good, so we’ll continue north as best we can. When we hit the interstate, maybe the going will be easier.”
“Or maybe someone can see us and shoot us from farther off,” said Scott.
“There is that, but unless we’re prepared to ditch the vehicles and hike cross-country, we’ll get either one problem or the other. If things get bad, we can always switch back.”
“Told you we should have gone east,” said Scott.
Rick glanced at him. “I seem to recall you agreeing with my decision to come this way.”
“Sure, if it works out. If it doesn’t, I want to claim credit for saying I told you so.”
Packy walked into the clearing, wiping motor oil from his hands. “Did you guys get anything good?” he asked. “What’s on the menu tonight?”
“Kale,” said Josh.
Packy screwed up his face. “Is that the best you can do after being on the road all day? Man, after a long drive, I like to get myself a burger, jack and coke.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, we haven’t really driven that far,” said Rick.
“Far enough. Kale and crushed bugs might be okay for you survivalist types, but this figure here needs something a little manlier and redder, if you know what I mean.”
Josh looked at him and wondered what figure he could possibly be talking about, as Packy was almost as scrawny as he was.
“If you want,” continued Packy, “I’ll take a visit to a couple of the local establishments and see if I can’t trade us a better meal for the night.”
“You’ve seen what they’re like,” said Rick. “They’re more likely to shoot you and take your vehicle.”
“And the ones that ain’t shooting are saying they ain’t got no food anyway,” said Harvey.
“They always say that,” Packy said airily. “First point of negotiation. You have to approach it with the right amount of tact and charm, and luckily for you guys, I’m the right man for the job.”
“Forget it,” said Rick. “These people aren’t interested in that. They just want to survive.”
“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” stated Packy. “You see, you’ve got the military mindset. Every problem’s a nail and you’re the hammer. If you can’t drive the nail home, you call in an air strike. Me, I’m a people person, and what people want is good stuff, and sometimes they don’t know what they want until you offer it to them.” Packy tapped his own skull. “Always analyzing. There’s, like, unseen waves you’ve got to tap into. You’ve got to groove your way in, check out the feels, pass a few compliments, get them to see what a great day it would be if they could have that one thing that you may just have at your disposal. You gotta drop
them hints and really engage with them. As soon as they get your drift, they’re grooving right along with you and it’s like a dance of minds. It’s beautiful.”
“Or they can just shoot you and take your vehicle.”
Packy threw up his hands. “That’s the kind of negative attitude that gets you nowhere. You’re just sowing discord, man. Let me show you how it’s done, and I guarantee we’ll be eating deer steaks and whatever else these hicks have been shooting their load at.”
Rick gazed at him for a moment. “No,” he said.
*
Lauren patrolled the perimeter of the camp, checking again on the vehicles, and returned to see Sally and April dragging fir branches to drape over the tents. Lauren took hold of April’s load.
“You shouldn’t be doing this,” she told April. “It pulls you in all the wrong places. You’ve got to think of the baby now.”
“I’m okay,” said April, re-shouldering the shotgun that had slipped down.
“Exercise is good for a pregnant woman,” said Sally. “Worst thing you can do is just sit around.”
Lauren looked over to where Dee sat on a log, cradling Jacob. “Tell me about it,” she said bitterly.
April caught Lauren’s glance, and gazed at Dee too. “She’s already got her hands full, so I think we can cut her some slack.”
Lauren turned to April. “Can we?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Doesn’t it burn you that all she does is sit on her ass?”
April gave an uncertain smile. “No. Why would it?”
“She’s freeloading,” stated Lauren.
“That’s a little harsh.”
“No it isn’t. Name one thing that she’s done since she joined us. All she does is hang around, treating people like dirt.”
“She’s had a hard time.”
“Who hasn’t? I mean, at least she can show a little gratitude once in a while.”
“Well, maybe she could, just a little. But she’s got PTSD, right? I mean, what do you think, Sally? The trauma ends someday, doesn’t it? People get better with time, with a little love?”
