Alas, Babylon

by Pat Frank

  The more thoughtful wives bought portable radios and extra batteries, candles, kerosene lanterns, matches, lighter fluid and flints, first-aid kits, and quantities of soap and toilet paper.

  When news spread that armed convicts, escaped from road gangs, had been seen near the town, Beck's Hard­ware sold out of rifles, shotguns, pistols, and very nearly out of ammunition.

  By afternoon the cash registers of Fort Repose were choked with currency, but many shelves and counters were bare and others nearly so. By afternoon the law of scarcity had condemned the dollar to degradation and contempt. Within a few more days the dollar, in Fort Repose, would be banished entirely as a medium of ex­change, at least for the duration.

  Sitting alone in his office, Edgar Quisenberry was aware of none of these facts, nor could his imagination anticipate the dollar's fall, any more than he could have imagined the dissolution of the Treasury and the Fed­eral Reserve System in the space of a single hour. Me­thodically, he read through the last batch of mail. There was nothing of any great importance, except heartening items in the Kiplinger Letter, predicting another in­crease in FHA mortgage rates, and better retail business in the South during the Christmas season. Also, from Detroit there was notice of a ten-percent stock dividend in automobile shares in his personal portfolio. He'd cer­tainly got in on the ground floor of that one, he thought. He hoped nothing happened to Detroit, but he had a disquieting feeling that something would, or had.

  At two o'clock, as always on Saturdays, he left the bank, first setting the time lock on the vault for eight-­thirty Monday morning. His car was a black Cadillac, three years old. He recalled that during the last big war automobile production had halted. He decided that on Monday, or perhaps this very afternoon, he would drive to San Marco and see who sort of a trade he could make on a new Caddy. Henrietta would be pleased, and it would be a hedge against long disruption of the econ­omy.

  When he started the engine he saw that his gas was low, and on the way home stopped at Jerry Kling's ser­vice station. He was surprised that there was no line of cars waiting, as there had been early that morning. Then he saw the big cardboard sign with its emphatic red lettering: SORRY. NO MORE GAS.

  Edgar honked and Jerry came out of the station, looking worn and limp. "Yes, Mr. Quisenberry?" Jerry said.

  "That's just to keep away tourists and floaters and such, isn't it?" Edgar said.

  "No, sir. I'm not only out of gas. I'm out of tires, spark plugs, batteries, thirty-weight oil, vulcanizing kits, drinks and candy, and low on everything else."

  "I've got to have gas. I'm just about out."

  "I should've put up that sign an hour after I opened. You know what, Mr. Quisenberry? I sold plumb out of tires before I got to thinking I needed new tires myself. I just let myself be charmed by that bell on the cash register. What a damn fool! I've got nothing but money."

  "I don't know that I can get home," Edgar said.

  "I think we'll all be walking pretty soon, Mr. Quisen­berry."' Jerry sighed. "I'll tell you what I'll do. You're an old customer. I've got a drum stashed away in the stockroom. I'll let you have three gallons. Back that thing up by the ramp, so nobody'll see."

  When he had his three gallons, Edgar brought out his wallet and said, "How much?"

  Jerry laughed and raised his hands in a gesture of repugnance. "Keep it! I don't want money. What the hell's money good for? You can't drive it and you can't eat it and it won't even fix a flat."

  Edgar drove on slowly, hunched over the wheel. He knew, vaguely, that in the second World War the Greek drachma and Hungarian pengo had become utterly worthless. And in the War of the Revolution the shilling of the Continental Congress hadn't been worth, in the British phrase, a Continental damn. But nothing like this had ever happened to the dollar. If the dollar was worthless, everything was worthless. There was a phrase he had heard a number of times, "the end of civilization as we know it." Now he knew what the phrase meant. It meant the end of money.

  When Edgar reached home Henrietta's car was gone. He found a note in the salver on the hall table. It read..

  1:30.

  EDGAR - tried to get you all morning but the phone is still out of order. The radio doesn't say much but I am frightened. Nevertheless, I am off to do the grocery shopping. I hope the stores aren't crowded. I do think that henceforth I will shop on Tuesdays or Wednesdays instead of Saturdays.

  Hadn't we better have both cars filled with gas? There may be a shortage. You remember how it was last time, with those silly A and B ration cards.

  You didn't leave any money when you rushed off this morning, but I can always cash checks. It may be hard for a while, but life goes on.

  Henrietta

  Edgar went up to the master bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. What a fool she was. Life goes on, she said. How could life go on with no Federal Reserve, no Treasury, no Wall Street, no bonds, no banks?

  Henrietta didn't understand it at all. How could life go on if dollars were worthless? How could anybody live without dollars, or credit, or both? She didn't un­derstand that the Bank had become only a heap of stone filled with worthless paper, so his credit would be no better than anybody's credit. If dollars were worth­less then there was nothing they could buy. You couldn't even buy a ticket, say, to South America, and even if you could how would you get to an airport? Grocery shopping, indeed! How would they shop a week, or a month from now?

  Henrietta was a fool. This was the end. Civilization was ended. Of one thing, Edgar was certain. He would not be crushed with the mob. He had been a banker all his life and that was the way he was going to die, a banker. He would not allow himself to be humiliated. He would not be reduced to begging gasoline or food, and be dragged down to the level of a probationary teller. He thought of all the notes outstanding that now would never be paid, and how his debtors must be chuckling. He scorned the improvident, and now the improvident would be just as good as the careful, the sound, the thrifty. Well, let them try to go on without dollars. He would not accept such a world.

  He found the old, nickel-plated revolver, purchased by his father many years before, in the top drawer of his bureau. Edgar had never fired it. The bullets were green with mold and the hammer rusted. He put it to his temple, wondering whether it would work. It did.

  [6]

  Always before, important events and dates had been marked in memory with definite labels, not only such days as Thanksgiving, New Year's, and Lin­coln's Birthday, but Pearl Harbor Day, D-Day, VE-Day, VJ-Day, Income Tax Day. This December Saturday, ever after, was known simply as The Day. That was sufficient. Everybody remembered exactly what they did and saw and said on The Day. People unconsciously were inclined to split time into two new periods, before The Day, and after The Day. Thus a man might say, "Be­fore The Day I was an automobile dealer. Now I oper­ate a trotline for catfish." Or a mother might boast, "Oh, yes, Oscar passed his college boards. Of course that was before The Day." Or a younger mother say, "Hope was born after The Day, I wonder about her teeth."

  This semantic device was not entirely original. Sev­eral generations of Southerners had referred to before and after "The War" without being required to explain what war. It seemed incongruous to call The Day a war - Russo-American, East-West, or World War III - ­because the war, really was all over in a single day. Fur­thermore, nobody in the Western Hemisphere ever saw the face of a human enemy. Very few actually saw an enemy aircraft or submarine, and missiles appeared only on the most sensitive radar screens. Most of those who died in North America saw nothing at all, since they died in bed, in a millisecond slipping from sleep into deeper darkness. So the struggle was not against a human enemy, or for victory. The struggle, for those who survived The Day, was to survive the next.

  This truth was not quickly or easily assimilated by Randy Bragg, although he was better prepared for it than most. It was totally outside his experience and without precedent in history.

  On The Day itself, whatever else he might be doing, h
e was never beyond sound of a radio, awaiting the news that ought to accompany war-news of victories or defeats, mobilization, proclamations, declarations, a message from the President, words of leadership, stead­fastness and unity. Altogether, there were seven radios in the house. All of them were kept turned on except the clock-radio in Peyton's room where the child, her eyes lubricated and bandaged, slept with the help of Dan Gunn's sedatives.

  Even when he ran up or down stairs, or discovered imperative duties outside, Randy carried his tiny tran­sistor portable. Twice he left the grounds, once on a buying mission to town, again briefly to visit the McGoverns. The picture window on the river side of the McGovern home had been cracked by concussion, and this, rather than the more terrifying and deadly im­plications of The Day, had had. a traumatic effect on Lavinia. She had been fed sleeping pills and put to bed. Lib and her father were functioning well, even bravely. Randy was relieved. He could not escape his primary duty, which was to his own family, his brother's wife and children. He could not devote his mind and energy to the protection of two houses at once.

  Until midafternoon, Randy heard only the quavery and uninformative thirty-second broadcasts from WSMF.

  Now he was downstairs, in the dining room with Hel­en. She had been making an inventory of necessities in the house, discovering a surprising number of items she considered essential, war or no war, which Randy had entirely forgotten. He was eating steak and vegetables - Helen, disapproving of his cannibal sandwiches, had in­sisted on cooking for him - and washing it dawn with orange juice. Leaning back in the scarred, massive cap­tain's chair he relaxed for the first time since dawn. A weariness flowed upward from his throbbing legs. He had slept only two or three hours in the past thirty-six, and he knew that when he finished eating the fatigue would seep through his whole body, and it would be necessary to sleep again. Across the circular, waxed teak table, looking fresh and competent, Helen sipped a Scotch and checked what she called her "must" list. "One of us," she was saying, "has got to make another trip to town. I have to have detergent for the dishwash­er and washing machine, soap powder, paper napkins, toilet paper. We ought to have more candles and I wish I could get my hand on some more old-fashioned kero­sene lamps. And, Randy, what about ammunition? I don't like to sound scary, but-"

  The radio, in an interval of silence between the local Conelrad broadcasts, suddenly squealed with an alien and powerful carrier wave. Then they heard a new voice. "This is your national Civil Defense Headquar­ters. . ."

  The front legs of Randy's chair hit the floor. He was wide awake again. The voice was familiar, the voice of a network newscaster, not one of the best known New York or Washington correspondents, but still recogniza­ble, a strong and welcome voice connecting them with the world beyond the borders of Timucuan County. It continued:

  "All local Conelrad stations will please leave the air now, and whenever they hear this signal. This is an emer­gency clear channel network. If the signal strength is er­ratic, do not change stations. It is because the signal is ro­tated between a number of transmitters in order to prevent bombing by enemy aircraft. The next voice you hear will be that of the Acting Chief Executive of the United States, Mrs. Josephine Vanbruuker-Brown-"

  Randy couldn't believe it. Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown was Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the President's Cabinet, or had been until this day.

  Then they heard her Radcliffe-Boston voice. It was Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown, all right. She said:

  "Fellow countrymen. As all of you know by now, at dawn this morning this country, and our allies in the free world, were attacked without warning with thermonuclear and atomic weapons. Many of our great cities have been destroyed. Others have been contaminated, and their evac­uation ordered. The toll of innocent lives taken on this new and darker day of infamy cannot as yet even be estimated."

  These first sentences had been clearly and bravely spoken. Now her voice faltered, as if she found it diffi­cult to say what it was now necessary to say. "The very fact that I speak to you as the Chief Executive of the nation must tell you much."

  They heard her sob. "No President," Helen whis­pered.

  "No Washington," Randy said. "I guess she was out of Washington, at home, or speaking somewhere, and wherever she lives-"

  Randy hushed. Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown was talking again:

  `"Our reprisal was swift, and, from the reports that have reached this command post, effective. The enemy has re­ceived terrible punishment. Several hundred of his missile and air bases, from the Chukchi Peninsula to the Baltic, and from Vladivostok to the Black Sea, have certainly been de­stroyed. The Navy has sunk or damaged at least a hundred submarines in North American waters.

  "The United States has been badly hurt, but is by no means defeated.

  "The battle goes on. Our reprisals continue.

  "However, further enemy attacks must be expected. There is reason to believe that enemy air forces have not as yet been fully committed. We must be prepared to with­stand heavy blows.

  "As Chief Executive of the United States, and Com­mander in Chief of the Armed Forces, I hereby declare a state of unlimited national emergency until such time as new elections are held, and Congress reconvenes.

  "In the devastated areas, and in those other areas where normal functions of government cannot be carried out, I hereby declare martial law, to be administered by the Army. I appoint Lieutenant General George Hunneker Army Chief of Staff, and Director of Martial Law in the Zone of the Interior, which means within the forty-nine states.

  "There have been grave dislocations of communications, of industrial, economic, and financial functions. I declare, effective at this moment, a moratorium on the payment of all debts, rents, taxes, interest, mortgages, insurance claims and premiums, and all and any other financial obligations for the duration of the emergency.

  "From time to time, God willing, I will use these facili­ties to bring you further information, as it is received, and to issue further decrees as they become necessary. I call upon you to obey the orders of your local Civil Defense directors, state and municipal authorities, and of the mili­tary. Do not panic.

  "Some of you may have guessed how it happens that I, the head of the most junior of government departments and a woman, have been forced to assume the duties and re­sponsibilities of Chief Executive on this, the most terrible day in our history.

  "One of the first targets of the enemy was Washington.

  "So far as we have been able to discover at this hour, neither the President nor the Vice President, nor any other Cabinet member, nor the leaders of House or Senate sur­vived. It appears certain that only a small percentage of the members of the Congress escaped. I survive only by chance, because this morning I was in another city, on an inspection tour. I am now in a military command post of relative safety. I have designated this command post Civil Defense Headquarters, as well as temporary seat of govern­ment."

  Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown coughed and choked, re­covered herself and continued: "With a sick heart, but the resolution to lead the nation to victory and peace, I leave you for the time being."

  The radio hummed for a second, the carrier wave cut off, and then there was silence.

  Randy said, "It's about what I expected, but it's aw­ful to hear it."

  "Still," Helen said, "there is a government."

  "I guess that's some comfort. I wonder what's left. I mean, what cities are left."

  Helen looked up at Randy. She looked at him, and through him, and far away. Her hands came together on the table, and her fingers interwined; when she spoke it was in a soft, almost inaudible voice, as if her thoughts were so fragile that they would be shattered by more than a whisper. "Do you think - is it possible - that the military command post she spoke of could be Offutt Field? Do you think she might be down in what we call the Hole, at SAC Headquarters? If she is at SAC, you know what that means, don't you?"

  "It could mean that Mark is okay. But Helen-"

  "Yes?
"

  Randy didn't think it likely that Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown was speaking from Omaha. The odds were against it. There were many headquarters, and the first one the enemy would try to destroy, after Washington itself, was SAC. Mark had feared this, and so did he. He said, "I don't think we should count on it."

  "I'm not counting on it. I'm just praying. If Mark is - alive - how long do you think it'll be before we hear from him?"

  "I can't even guess. But I do know who can make an educated guess. Admiral Hazzard. He lives on the other side of the Henrys' place. He listens to short wave and keeps up with everything that goes on. He served a tour in ONI, and later was on the Intelligence staff of the Joint Chiefs - I think that was his last duty before they retired him. So if anybody around here should know what's happening then old Sam Hazzard should know."

  "Can we see him?"

  "Of course we can see him. Any time we want. It's only a quarter mile. But we can't leave Peyton alone and I don't have any idea what time Dan Gunn will get here" His arms felt wooden, and detached, and his head too heavy for his neck. His chin drooped on his chest. "And I'm so blasted tired, Helen. I feel that if I don't get a couple of hours of real sleep I'll go off my rocker. If I don't get some rest I won't be much good from here in, and God knows what'll happen tonight."

  Helen said, "I'm sorry, Randy. Of course you're groggy. Go on up stairs and get some sleep. I'm going to drive to town. There's so much stuff we've just got to have."

  "Suppose Peyton calls? I'll never wake up."

  "Ben Franklin will be here. I'll tell him to wake you up if anything serious happens."