After the Shift: The Complete Series

by Grace Hamilton

  Nathan risked his head to move above the countertop. The street outside lay choked with snow and dead cars. The building opposite, with all its broken windows, showed the apartments inside were uninhabited. This was a dark and eerily silent quarter of the city usually, but it was one he and Stryker had to travel through to get to the market in Trash Town.

  “I think they’ve gone,” Nathan said, risking standing up. Stryker nodded and followed Nathan to where they’d dropped the small crate containing one of the spare Chinese power inverters that the two men were taking to Trash Town to barter with for what goods they could find.

  They’d busted their way into this long-looted store when they’d heard shooting a block or so away, but hadn’t managed to find cover before a ricochet or just a wild shot had tried to add some new ventilation to Nathan’s head.

  Nathan inched towards the doorway that led out to the sidewalk. A slicing wind had begun whipping up ice and flurry, plowing a line along the becalmed vehicles. There was no shouting, though, and he could no longer hear any gunfire. If the gangs were still in the vicinity, then either one had triumphed or the other had managed to get away. Ammunition was so scarce in the city that gangs really had to have a beef with each other to waste it.

  Nathan stopped to pick up one of the rope handles on the end of the crate they’d been carrying and Stryker took the other. They’d made it ten steps along the icy sidewalk before Nathan realized he still had the pistol in his hand. He put it back in his holster and zipped up the jacket.

  “You’re too trusting, dude,” Stryker said, indicating that Nathan shouldn’t have put his weapon away.

  Nathan looked back at Stryker with eyes as cold as the street. “Ain’t that the truth?”

  Stryker looked down, but answered, “I guess I asked for that.”

  “I guess you did.”

  What Stryker hadn’t told Nathan or Cyndi before they’d begun their journey to Detroit was that the Greenhousers—the ones who lived in relative comfort in the city—offered bonuses and bounties to any of their outer city dwellers who could bring skilled and useful people to the city. Stryker’s messages and promises hadn’t been designed to get Nathan to the city per se, although good practical men were always needed, but to get Cyndi there. Her deep knowledge of prepper culture, tricks, tips, and survival processes made her someone who was invaluable to the Greenhousers and their Mayor Brant.

  That Cyndi had refused to cooperate with the City Government in any way while she was pregnant, and also now that she was dealing with a sickly child, had been only half the reason she was so resistant to Brant’s overtures. She had nearly lost her husband, her son, and her unborn son on the journey there—a journey that had turned out to be a sham—and she had made it very clear to the Greenhousers that she would not be fitting right into their little system like a cog. Not while she couldn’t trust them as far as she could throw them.

  Nathan smiled as he remembered the incandescent rage Cyndi had shown to Brant when the fat, officious little man, all political puff and false bonhomie, had visited them in Stryker’s apartment. Brant had been sent away with a mess of fleas in his ears, and hadn’t looked at all like a man who was used to being talked to like that.

  They had been told by Brant that they would have to reside with Stryker in the Masonic building, however unhappy that made them, or else they would be thrown out of the city—baby or no baby. Nathan’s smile disappeared smartly as he reviewed that particular aspect of the situation, and so he put his head down and marched.

  The walk to Trash Town took another half an hour, but they didn’t get caught up in any more gang fights along the way. The tension between Stryker and Nathan was still pervasive, and on occasion, corrosive. Although Nathan had known Stryker for over half of his life, and had cemented their friendship in school and college, Nathan had taken the traditional route in life by working with his daddy in the family-owned auto shop in Glens Falls, NY., while after college, Stryker had sent himself on an odyssey that had taken him into Hollywood, trucking, and many failed relationships, until he’d finally fetched up in Detroit, trying desperately to make himself more useful than he actually was. He’d shown this side of his character on the very first day Nathan, his family, and their friends had turned up—by blowing up his apartment before they’d even had a chance to get through the doors. Stryker hadn’t placed adequate safety systems around the lashed-up methane still he’d been prototyping, and the place had gone up in a gust of flame and flying soil.

  It had soon become clear to Nathan that Stryker was more mouth than he was trousers; he should have realized it from the start, and was kicking himself for not doing so. Stryker, although fun, had been a waster in youth, a maker of big plans that were never followed through. His life in Detroit was proving to be working out along similar lines. And even though, in normal circumstances, Nathan would have held a soft spot for his friend and might even have felt sorry for the desperation of his situation, he couldn’t now get the bitter taste of deception out of his mouth.

  They reached the corner of the city block and Trash Town was suddenly laid out before them. Groups of people huddled around burning braziers, gouts of black smoke billowing up around them. The streets here were narrow, and the canvas of an old circus tent had been cannibalized to provide a sheltered area that was roped across the street some fifteen feet and held in place by poles. The whole area could be taken down in minutes when a storm blew through the city, and the poles could be shaken to dislodge any buildup of ice or snow that accrued.

  Trash Town was so named because it was where anything looted, made, or grown in the non-Greenhoused areas of the city could be traded for other similar items. The bustle of commerce and community was balanced by a basic paranoia and fear of strangers, and it had taken Nathan some time to get his face well-known around the place and become accepted.

  Armed guards stood by the nearest brazier, warming their hands and their butts. Their shotguns were leveled down as Stryker and Nathan approached with their crate swinging between them. As soon as the head guard saw they were friendlies, though, Nathan and Stryker were waved through into the open maw of Trash Town.

  Inside the tented off area of the street, the air was warmer, and it smelled of cooking and damp bodies. Stalls were set up along one wall where pies and breads were up for barter, another selling water purification filters – the plumbing system in the city having long since broken down – but the snow that blew down from the fierce sky was contaminated with volcanic ash from the super volcano that had erupted on the subarctic coast of Alaska, making flight impossible and sending temperatures even lower. Beyond the filters were dried meats from unidentifiable sources—Nathan still hadn’t built up enough courage to try them. They were managing to grow enough vegetables in Stryker’s rebuilt hydroponic farm, and barter for other food, so it hadn’t been necessary. Those dried meats, after all, could have come from anywhere or anything. Meanwhile, other sellers were openly pushing hydroponically-grown marijuana and other mind-altering substances. Life in the city for the non-Greenhousers was tough and depressing, so a lot of people were self-medicating when they could. Nathan hadn’t partaken himself, but there was a distinct aroma of the drug around the Masonic Temple on occasion. Donie, Dave, and Stryker were all smoking the odd joint when they could get one, and didn’t seem to mind Nathan’s disapproval. He was satisfied that, out of some level of respect for his views, they never did it around the children.

  Once again, Nathan thought that Trash Town’s tent had the feeling of a Wild West outpost from some long-forgotten America. The flickering light from the braziers, the hubbub of conversation, and the rich aroma of food with an underlying atmosphere of mistrust all made Nathan feel like he and Stryker had walked into an old-style saloon. A piano hadn’t exactly stopped playing, and neither had all the eyes turned on them, but some faces were shifting in their direction, and greedy expressions showed in the firelight as their crate swung between them.

  A thi
n-faced woman with ratty dreads, a torn Barbour jacket, and white tribe markings across the brown cheeks of her face stepped from the crowd. “You bring it, Stryker?”

  Stryker pulled up on his rope handle, causing the Chinese inverter to clunk inside the crate. “Have I ever let you down, Rose?”

  “Let me count de ways,” Rose countered sarcastically as she pointed to a nearby stall. “You stay out de way of Brant’s men?”

  “Of course,” Stryker answered. Rose fixed him with an x-ray stare that even made Nathan shiver. When it appeared that she’d sucked everything out of Stryker’s soul with her eyes, she pointed at the crate next. “Bring it.”

  Stryker had told Nathan that Rose, one of the canniest traders in Trash Town, and its de facto leader, had made it known that she had a stock of seeds recovered from a market garden scavenging mission. She was willing to trade, and between the scarcity of good inverters and Stryker having a couple of spares, it was a good deal to make.

  The crate was hefted into the stall and Nathan released the clasps on the lid. The inverter, red and old, looked like it had seen better days.

  “This the best you have?” Rose asked with maximum suspicion in her voice.

  “I checked it over myself; it’s old but it does the job. You won’t find a better one today, or tomorrow.”

  “Who’s your friend?” Rose asked Stryker, ignoring Nathan completely. “I seen ‘im around, but I haven’t yet…had the pleasure.”

  “This is Nathan, Rose. He’s solid. And he knows his stuff. Trust me…”

  Rose almost choked laughing, and in that moment, Nathan decided that he liked her.

  Rose scrambled around on the floor and brought up a wire. “This from the windmill up on roof. Let’s see what your contraption do.”

  Nathan took the wire from her hand and plugged it into the inverter. The power light came on and the dial jumped. “DC your end; AC this end. It’ll work like a dream for you, and if it doesn’t, I’ll come over and fix it for free.”

  Rose gave a salacious smile and squeezed Nathan’s bicep. “That’s not all you can come over and fix if you want, honey.”

  Nathan felt his face reddening. And even in a broken world, with his family’s life in the balance against the hell of the Big Winter and being forced to live in Detroit, a city full of danger and threat around every corner, Nathan was glad he could still feel normal, human emotions—even if it was through a little bit of uncomfortable embarrassment. He’d been tempered and toughened in so many different ways over the last few months that just this simple thing made his heart leap with joy. He smiled at Rose. “If I wasn’t married, with a boy and a baby just born, I would take that as the highest compliment, ma’am. But right now, the only extra seeding I want to do is with your beetroot and bell peppers. If you get my drift?”

  Rosa threw back her head and gave a hearty laugh, one that seemed to dissipate the tension in Trash Town and make the whole situation a whole lot more reasonable.

  They stayed for drinks with Rose once the deal was done. The hard liquor the Trash Towners were distilling in basements in the buildings around the settlement was raw and scratchy on the throat, but Nathan enjoyed the warmth. Their talk was of the bad feelings between the Trash Towners, and the security of Brant’s faction living in the comfort and warmth of their greenhouses. There was much resentment from those outside in the cold, forced to trade at vastly unfair rates for foodstuffs and meats grown under the glass.

  “It is ever so with the rich,” Rose said bitterly, necking a slug of cloudy liquor from an old bottle. “Dey need us poor, bringing them stuff. Bad days in Detroit, pretty boys. Bad days, indeed.”

  When the drinking and philosophizing was done, the crate had been stocked with packets of seeds and some sad-looking seed potatoes. With another playful squeeze of Nathan’s bicep, Rose sent the two of them on their way.

  “I guess I better bring you every time I go trading with Rose,” Stryker said, with not a little bit of edge in his voice, as they walked away. Stryker had been working hard to build a level of status since he’d arrived in Detroit, but Nathan was already better at being popular and in demand—it came to him naturally. He’d been proving himself around the other apartments in the Masonic building, fixing up electrics and generators, working on the building’s heating systems. He’d stabilized the building’s ancient boiler by jury-rigging neat new heat-exchangers, and also fixed a problem with the emergency lighting in the internal fire escape stairwell. Nathan just saw it as being neighborly, but he could tell, in some respects, that Stryker thought he was trying to usurp him in some way. It couldn’t be further from the truth. As soon as they could, they were getting out of Detroit, and that was that.

  “She was a character, yeah. I liked her.”

  “Not as much as she liked you.”

  They walked on in silence for a while. The afternoon twilight was thickening towards the first edge of night, and the deserted streets on the journey from Trash Town were deadened by the last deep fall of snow—the quietness pressing hard and uncomfortably against Nathan’s ears. Thoughts of how the city of Detroit must have been so different before the Big Winter punched him in the gut.

  These streets would have been thronged with cars and people, and the yelling, music, and conversation—everyone trying to be heard, everyone trying to live their lives and do their do. Now it was like walking through the world’s largest cemetery, with gravestones as big as buildings.

  Stryker’s feet crunched to a halt, snapping Nathan out of his thoughts. “Did you hear that?”

  Nathan listened. Nothing but the snow-dead silence of the street greeted him. “No. What did you hear?”

  “A click.”

  Nathan listened again, but there was nothing. “What sort of click?”

  “I’ve had to be around guns more than enough these last few years, Nathan; you get so know the sounds. We’re being watched, and I just heard someone take the safety off.”

  Nathan looked up at the looming, snow-smeared buildings around them, their windows broken and the rooms beyond them dark. The sky was glutted with gray clouds. If they didn’t make it back to the Masonic Temple anytime soon, they were going to be out in the snowy wastes of Detroit in full dark. And that didn’t bear thinking about.

  “You know, I thought my ears were good, but you, sir, have taken it to the next level.”

  Nathan and Stryker spun around. In the windows of the building they’d passed only moments before, three faces were hovering in the gray gloom, their clothes dark and their faces covered in ski masks. They were all holding weapons. A shotgun, a pistol, and a semi-automatic rifle.

  “I guess it’s the snow that does it, makes the silence more intense, and me just clicking off the safety on my pistol here was too loud under the circumstances.”

  The voice was harsh and female. It came from the middle figure. “I mean, I was going to shout to you anyways… I was just, as you might say, making preparations in case you two decided to be heroes. So, gentlemen. What’s in the crate?” The woman moved her hand with the gun up in a harsh flick. “And would you please, for safety’s sake, and my sensibilities, please raise your hands. I wouldn’t want to shoot you in the face for nothing.”

  The woman, after telling one of the figures in the widow, the one with the semi-automatic, to “Cover them,” ducked inside, and moments later emerged from a door at the top of some snow-covered steps. Behind her, another ski-masked, dark-suited man—by the way he walked—followed her gingerly down the steps.

  “Is this a robbery?” Nathan asked as the woman reached the bottom of the steps and planted her feet firmly in the snow, raising her pistol as she did so.

  “Well, that depends if you got anything worth stealing. But in reality, I hope not. Instead of stealing from you, I think I’d rather make a deal—how does that sound?”

  Nathan couldn’t have gotten at his gun even if he’d wanted to since it was zipped inside his jacket. And the man in the ski mask was level
ing his shotgun at Stryker’s waist.

  “Your weapons, please,” the woman said, “and slowly please; my fingers are cold and they tend to shiver. We don’t want that shivering turning into a shooting, do we?”

  Stryker and Nathan carefully handed their guns over. The woman relaxed a little. The ski-masked man didn’t.

  “We know you,” the woman said to Stryker. “You’re one of those who live in the Masonic Temple.”

  “Yeah? What of it?” Stryker replied, his voice holding remarkably strong under the circumstances.

  “I just want you to know that we know where you live.”

  “So?”

  “So that we can find you and kill you, if you don’t do exactly what we say.”

  2

  The words hung frozen in the air like icicles. “What deal do you want to make?” Nathan asked.

  The woman lowered her pistol, but her friend with the shotgun leveled his up. “A sensible man. I like sensible men. What’s in the crate?”

  “None of your business,” Stryker spat.

  Nathan turned to Stryker and made a face. “Let’s at least hear them out.”

  The ski-masked woman nodded. “What he said, Stry.”

  “Don’t make the situation worse. While we’re talking, we’re breathing,” Nathan added.

  Stryker’s skin was reddening and the fingers of his gloved hands spasmed. He seemed far from convinced that this was an acceptable trade-off. “I know exactly what you people are. I’ve been in this city long enough to recognize vermin when I see them!”