One Second After

CHAPTER EIGHT

There was an air of celebration in the crowd that gathered about the town hall as John pulled into what was now his usual slot in front of the fire station.

The fire trucks, which had been rolled out over a month ago to make room for the emergency supplies stockpiled inside, were still in place, still motionless, no longer sparkling, somewhat dusty. Horses were tethered to the bumper of one of them.

The crowd stood around expectantly and many, seeing him approach, stepped back slightly, nodding greetings respectfully.

All were showing signs of the effects after thirty-five days. Faces were thinner, pinched on some. Clothing in general was dirty, sweat stained; hair, greasy, many of the men beginning to sport beards. And all of them stank. He wondered if this was indeed how people really smelled a hundred years ago, the scent of a crowd of unwashed bodies, or was it that thirty-six days ago people were used to sterility, terrified if their deodorant failed and they “offended,” nearly all taking a shower at least once a day, many twice a day in the summer?

Was this now normal? Was this how Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln smelled, so normal that it just was no longer really noticed?

Tom appeared at the door of the police wing of the building, grinning.

“It works!”

A ragged cheer went up from the crowd, which then gradually began

to drift apart, though many pressed up to the doorway and windows to look into the conference room as if what was inside was some sort of miracle.

John edged his way through and into the building. “We’ll start in a few minutes, but for right now, let’s enjoy this,” Tom replied.

John stepped into the conference room and had to smile at the sight of the old crank phone attached to the wall.

“Yes, yes, I hear you!” Charlie shouted, earphone in one hand, bending over slightly to shout into the speaker.

“Yes, I understand. It works; now keep setting up the wire. Yes, over and out here. Good-bye.”

He hung up and turned to face the gathering.

“We got a phone system.”

There was a round of applause picked up by those gathered outside.

John looked at the contraption, salvaged from an antique store, as he suggested, a comparable phone now set up in the police station in Swannanoa. It had taken the work of a dozen linemen, older employees of the phone company, several of them refugees allowed in through the gap.

Fiber-optics, modern wiring systems, were out. They had to find old-fashioned copper wire, a hard task, but bits and pieces were salvaged from a variety of sources, a golden find an old abandoned telephone or telegraph line of several miles along the railroad tracks. The wire had to be carefully spliced together, then strung on glass or ceramic insulators, most made out of soda bottles.

It was the first line, the goal now to run it into Asheville. Remarkably, an old-style switchboard had been found in the basement of the granddaughter of a phone operator from the twenties. When the system had been junked back in the fifties, apparently the old lady had her board toted home as a keepsake. A couple of the elderly phone company workers were now trying to remember how to rig it up, an actual switchboard that could handle dozens of phones.

There were other accomplishments. One of the junkyards in Swannanoa had successfully gotten a tractor-trailer diesel from the early sixties running. That had triggered intense debate as to who would get it, the fire department finally winning out, and on a flatbed were now attached hoses, ladders, and gear. They had even figured out how to use the engine as a power takeoff to run a water pump.

Fire had become a frightful hazard. Those who still had food were cooking with wood, and home fires and brush fires were commonplace. The community still had water pressure for those places lower than 2500-foot altitude, the height of the face of the reservoir dam. But above that, it was hauling buckets, and the potential of house fires turning into out-of-control forest fires kept everyone worried.

Between the two communities there were now over a hundred vehicles running and more coming online every day. Several mechanics had learned to bypass and yank out the electronics, especially on cars that only had minimal dependence on them, slap on some old replacements, and get the engines to turn over again.

A moped shop had become highly successful at getting their relatively simple machines running again, along with older motorcycles.

There were so many vehicles running now that a salvaged generator had been hooked up at Smiley’s and the gas from Hamid’s belowground tanks was flowing again.

Smiley’s had become something of the old “general store.” There was precious little to sell, other than his legendary horde of cigarettes, which were now doled out one at a time in exchange for a dead squirrel, old silver coins, or whatever might capture Hamid’s fancy.

John almost regretted his sense of fair play that first day. He should have purchased a dozen cartons. He was down to five packs and rationing himself to no more than five cigarettes a day now.

“OK, everybody, time for the meeting, so let’s clear the room,” Charlie announced.

Those who had gathered to gaze at the phone reluctantly left the room. Charlie closed the windows and dropped the Venetian blinds.

It was the usual group. Charlie, Bob, Kate, Doc Kellor, and John. Carl and Mike from Swannanoa came down from their end if there was something directly related to them at the moment but today were caught up with a forest fire up along Haw Creek that was threatening to turn into a real inferno.

A ritual John had insisted on was now enacted, the group turning to face an American flag in the corner of the room and recite the Pledge of

Allegiance, and then Kate led them in a brief prayer before Charlie announced the meeting was now in order.

“I hate to jump the gun on the agenda, but I’ve got something important,” John said.

“What?”

“Outside news.”

“Well, for God’s sake, man, why didn’t you say something when you came in?” Charlie asked.

“Everyone was excited about the phone, and well, frankly, some of it isn’t all that good.”

“Go on; tell us,” Kate said.

“There’s a station on the radio now. Voice of America.”

“Wow. When?” Kate cried.

“I was driving last night, fiddling with the dial on the car, and it came in clear as day.”

“The radio?” Charlie shouted. “Tell us about it. My God, we got radio again!

“The old radio in the Edsel. I don’t know, I was just fooling with the dial and suddenly it came in loud and clear, frequency at the old Civil Defense band. We sat there listening to it for a half hour or so, then atmospheric skip and it faded.”

“We?” Kate asked.

He didn’t reply. Makala had come down to join them for a meal and check on Jennifer and he was just driving her back to the conference center, which was now the nursing home and isolation ward for incoming refugees who were allowed to stay.

“So what the hell is going on?” Tom asked.

“They’re broadcasting off the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, part of our fleet stationed in the Persian Gulf when things started. They beelined it back here. They said the carrier was somewhere off the coast of the United States and was now the command post for relief and recovery operations.

“They said that help is on the way. Kept repeating that every five minutes. Said the nation is still under martial law.”

“No news there,” Kate said.

“What kind of help?” Tom asked.

“Didn’t say, other than relief supplies are coming from Britain, Australia, and India and China.”

“India and China?” Charlie asked.

“Yes, struck me as strange. That earlier report about a weapon detonated over the western Pacific.”

“Who we fighting?” Tom asked.

“Didn’t say. Just that allied forces are fighting, in Iran, Iraq, Korea. Good news is that Charleston, Wilmington, and Norfolk have been declared emergency restructuring centers.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Kellor asked.

“I guess it means if we have some kind of functional assets overseas that didn’t get hit, ships that can provide electrical power, aircraft, trained personnel, they’d be coming back here and those are three local places.”

“Charleston is the nearest, two hundred and fifty miles away,” Charlie sighed. “That won’t help us a damn bit.”

“I know,” John said.

“What about the war?” Tom asked.

“Anything beyond the three cities?” Kate interjected.

“Nothing else. Oh yeah, the president is the former secretary of state. She’s in charge.”

No one spoke at that news.

“Apparently the president died aboard Air Force One; they got him up in the air and the plane wasn’t hardened sufficiently to absorb the pulse. They didn’t say what happened to the vice president or Speaker of the House.”

“Nothing really that affects us directly,” Charlie said, and no one replied. Strange, the death of a president and now we say it doesn’t affect us, John thought.

“That was it. Then they played music.”

“What?” Charlie cried. “Music?”

“Patriotic stuff. ‘God Bless America,’ it faded out with the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’.”

John looked around the room.

“At least we know they’re out there.”

“The legendary ‘they,’” Kellor replied coldly. “Doesn’t help us here and now with what I’ve got to talk about.”

“Go on,” Charlie said. “In fact, what you just told us, John, depresses the hell out of me. The thought that they’re so close. Hell, a month and a half ago a C-130 loaded with medical supplies could have flown here in an hour from Charleston. Now it’s like they’re on the far side of the moon.

“Doc, why don’t you go ahead.”

“Only thirteen deaths yesterday,” Doc said, and there was a murmur of approval, the lowest number since they had started to keep count. “Two were heart attacks; two, though, were our dialysis patients. I think that is the last of them. Everyone in our communities who was on dialysis is now dead.”

No one spoke.

“We also lost one of our diabetics.”

Again no one spoke, but John felt eyes turning towards him. Of course they knew. He stared straight ahead, saying nothing. “And we had a birth.”

“Who?” Kate asked.

“Mary Turnbill. A healthy six-pound baby girl. Named Grace America Turnbill.”

“Damn, that’s good,” Tom said out loud.

“Eight births so far, and only one lost child and mother. Not much of a statistical base yet, but still it’s better than average compared to a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“Good work, Doc,” Charlie said.

“Well, I better go from that to the downside of things. In one sense we are in what I would call the grace period right now, the calm between storms. Our initial die-off in the first days, those needing major medical intervention, the first round of food poisoning, those woefully out of shape, as you know, approximately twelve hundred deaths out of ten thousand, five hundred total here in Black Mountain and Swannanoa. We still don’t have an exact figure on those who got in the first few days, but it had to be well over a thousand, so let’s put our total number at twelve thousand, now back down to roughly ten thousand or so.”

“That doesn’t count the casualties from the fighting at the gap, and refugees dying outside the barrier,” Tom interjected.

“No, I’m only counting those who died of natural causes at the moment. What I’m saying is that those who would die quickly have pretty well died off. Across the next fifteen days or so the numbers should be fairly low as long as we keep the community stable and nothing exotic sneaks in on us, but then, I hate to say, it’s going to start sliding up again and within thirty days be far worse than anything we’ve seen so far.”

Kellor hesitated, looking at John for a moment. Kellor knew his secret regarding the stash of insulin.

“Nearly all our type one diabetics will die this month. The pharmacies, in general, allocated one bottle of a thousand units per person. That supply is now running out for them. So we can expect all of them, approximately a hundred and twenty in our communities, to start dying.”

No one spoke.

“Other deaths in the coming month: severe asthmatics running short on their rescue inhalators, severe heart arrhythmia patients running out of beta-blockers, so I expect we are in the middle of the lull before the next wave hits.

“There is another issue as well, though, that I don’t think many of us thought of, but Tom, you better start gearing up for it and we might have to start thinking about taking over a building as another isolation ward.”

“What for?” Kate asked.

“Severe psychosis.”

“You mean insanity?” Tom asked. “Hell, we’re already seeing enough crazies coming in at the gap. And the suicides as well over the last month. I think we’re all half-crazy now.”

“Well, it’s going to get a lot worse within a matter of days,” Kellor said.

“Why within days?” Tom interjected.

“About a quarter of the population was on antidepressants or antianxiety agents. Prozac, Xanax, Lexapro, even just plain old lithium. Most of those people rushed to the pharmacies and stocked up, but even then, on average a person got at best a thirty-day supply.

“They’re running out now. Withdrawal for some won’t be too bad; for others symptoms will be quite severe, including hallucinations. Compound that with the stress we are under already. As an old-time doc I’ll be the first to tell you quite a few on these meds were just mildly neurotic, living in a very pampered society where it was almost obligatory to have some sort of disorder. But seriously, roughly five percent of the population do have severe disorders, and one to two percent dangerous disorders that include severe paranoia and potential for highly aggressive behavior.”

“In other words, expect a lot of insanity,” Tom said.

“You’ll be the one dealing with it,” Kellor replied, “and I think your people better be briefed on it. Not too long ago in our past families suffered with it, keeping their crazy uncle Louie restrained or locked away, or shipped them to state hospitals which were indeed snake pits. Where do you think the word ‘bedlam’ came from? It was the hospital for the insane in eighteenth-century England and, if you saw the old prints, a true hellhole.

“We haven’t dealt with this ever since all the modern meds started coming out in the sixties and seventies. That and the changing of laws that pretty well stopped involuntary commitment except in extreme cases emptied the hospitals.

“If it was back fifty years ago, at least a hundred of our fellow citizens would be already under some form of restraint, either at home or in a state institution. Now they are with us and the medications that kept them somewhat stable are gone. Hundreds more are in varying degrees of instability as well. What I’m trying to get across is that we’ll have upwards of a thousand people in our community who are in varying degrees of psychological unbalance, not related at all to the crisis but instead to their forced withdraw from medications. And at least fifty to a hundred will be extremely dangerous, to themselves or to others. Severe paranoids, schizophrenics, delusional personalities, several living here with criminal pasts but who were declared insane, treated, then released back into the community. I think, Charlie, you are going to have to authorize me to be able to declare people to be mentally unstable and to then incarcerate them by force. We’ll need then to find people to tend to them, and also decide how we deal with food distribution to them.”

Charlie sighed, rubbing his beard, and then nodded.

“I authorize you to have the authority to declare a person to be mentally deranged and to have them incarcerated, if need be against their will or that of their family. Tom, you will be responsible for arrest. I’ll post that notice later today.”

Kellor nodded.

“I think in at least thirty or forty cases we should move preemptively, meaning now, even if they still have some meds left. As a doctor, I know which of my patients were truly over the edge long before this happened. Patients who had repeated hospitalizations and incidents. Tom, you would know some of them, too, from incidents that led to their going to a psychiatric unit or jail. I think we should grab those people now before it gets bad.”

“One thing,” John said quietly.

“Go on.”

“Keep in the back of our minds how that power was also used to lock up those that neighbors just didn’t like, political dissenters, and, in a darker time, the belief that insanity was satanic and the resulting witch hunts. We got a couple small churches in this community that are already preaching that this disaster is God’s punishment to a sinful nation, and/or that it is now the end-time. I never thought about what Doc here was saying in regards to mass psychosis, but we might see some of these deranged people being seen either as prophets if they have a good gift for gab even though they’re crazy or, on the other side, demonically possessed.”

“Damn, this is starting to sound medieval,” Kate sighed.

“We are medieval, Kate,” John shot back. “If we got people going off the deep end, and definitely if there is prior record of severe mental disorder, yes indeed, we’ll have to lock them up, for everyone’s protection. All we need is a bunch of people following some mad prophet around or a mob stoning a witch and it could come to that, but it’s a fine line and we can’t go overboard on it. We all know the news leaking in from Knoxville about that crazy cult; we don’t want even the beginnings of it here.”

John looked over at Kellor, who nodded in agreement.

“And one other item related to this,” Kellor said. “Alcohol. The rush on the ABC store pretty well cleaned it out on Day One and the looting afterwards finished it.”

John found himself thinking about single-malt scotch, the few ounces left in his bottle behind the desk.

“So the drunks, the hard-core alcoholics, are out by now, and that can get tough. My concern: some will try anything for a drink, trying to distill it.”

“Every ear of corn goes to food,” Charlie snapped. “We catch anyone trying to steal corn to turn into booze and there will be hell to pay.”

“Not that, Charlie. I mean trying to distill out of any potential source, right down to people thinking they can get something out of hydraulic fluid. I’ve already got one idiot blinded because of wood alcohol. That’s going to go up as well.”

“A dry community,” Kate chuckled softly. “We were for a long time after the Depression. Guess we are again.”

“Now down to the harder issue,” Kellor continued. “Food.”

There were sighs around the table.

“With the cutting of rations yet again, we are, at best, doling out little more than twelve hundred calories a day per person. Our reserve stockpiles are down to not much more than ten days. I am going to have to suggest a further cut, by a third or so, to extend that out to fifteen days.”

“What I was thinking as well,” Charlie replied.

“What about the food on the hoof, cattle, pigs, horses?”

“We’ve gone through a third of that stock, and we must stretch that reserve out as long as possible.”

“For how long?” Kate asked.

“The radio, though,” Tom said. “If things are coming back online down on the coast, hell, help might be up here in another month or two. All they need is one diesel-electric locomotive and it can haul ten thousand tons of food and supplies.”

“Easier said than done,” John announced. “When we got hit, every train on every track in the country stalled. It’s not like a highway, where you just move around it. Once they get some locomotives working, every stalled train on every line will have to be pushed somewhere to clear the line. All switches will have to be set manually.

“I’ve been hoping the folks up at Smoky Mountain Railroad might actually get something running with their steam locomotive, their track actually connects down into Asheville, but there hasn’t been a word about it.

“Whatever help is coming in now, it will be from the coast. We are now like America of two hundred years ago. Get a day’s walk in from the coast or a major river and you are in wilderness. So don’t plan anything here with the hope that just maybe the legendary ‘they’ will show up.”

“Maybe isn’t definite,” Charlie replied. “I agree with John on this one. Think of it, Tom; let’s say the navy did steam into Charleston. There’s a million people there without food. Anything beyond spitting distance of the sea I’m not optimistic for right now. Doc, tell us what you are thinking.”

“The rations are running short,” Kellor said. “Compounded by the fact that more and more of our locals are applying for ration cards as well, now that their own food stocks have run out. So even as we run out, there are more mouths to feed.”

John had yet to apply for ration cards for his family. He had always been proficient with a rifle, and using the .22 he had nailed several possums, a number of squirrels for the dogs, and remarkably, just the day before, a torn turkey that had been such a feast that he had invited the Robinson family up to join them, Lee Robinson actually producing a quart bottle of beer and canned corn for the occasion. Makala had been there as well with a chocolate bar she had kept stashed away. Even the dogs had been given some scraps.

The possums, well, they reminded John of the old television series where Granny was always talking about possum pie. Jen was horrified when he had brought the first one in, she tried roasting it in the stove out on the deck, a disaster, but they were learning, even though the darn things were greasy as hell.

“You realize that if we cut back to around nine hundred calories a day we are at nearly the same level as the siege of Leningrad. Resistance is already down; the average person has lost at least fifteen pounds or more. For many that’s actually damn good, but now we start getting into the body eating itself, and not just the reserve fat most Americans carry around.

“Strength will be impacted significantly and I want to talk more about that in a few minutes. For the general population on rations the impact is going to start kicking in within the next couple of weeks. Immunological systems in everybody are weakening, meaning if that flu down in Old Fort gets up here, it will be like the 1918 epidemic that killed nearly two million in America. I’d estimate ten percent of us dying in a matter of days if flu breaks out. I think, Charlie, that we will have to shut down our free passage through the gap or change the procedure. Lord knows how many flu carriers are walking along our interstate every day heading west.”

Charlie sighed and looked over at John and Tom.

“We do that,” Tom said, “there’ll be more riots. Getting those people moving further west has prevented any more problems since the big riot of two weeks back.”

“I agree with Tom,” John said. “Block the barrier, we’ll have a buildup of a couple of thousand again within days, even more desperate than the first wave, and it will be a bloody fight. Let them through, but drill our people on extra caution.”

“They’re wearing the hazmat suits already,” Charlie said.

“Yeah, and most likely taking them off with their bare hands, not washing down properly.”

He sighed.

“It’ll most likely jump no matter what we do. People are not just staying on the roads; they’re crawling up through the woods.”

“I’m getting reports of that,” Tom said. “Strangers breaking into houses, then running back up into the woods when someone shows up. Most likely outsiders.”

John looked at Kate, who said nothing. The word was ingrained now across the populace. Even those who had not been inside the town on the first day but came in before the barriers went up were now using it, almost as if to say, “I’m here now; I’m not one of thenar

“Nutrition-wise, thank God we’re well into June. Scurvy is not a concern; we got enough greens of one sort or another, though the soup made out of boiled grass and dandelions is a bit rough to swallow. The first vegetables are starting to come in as well.”

Throughout May Charlie, taking a page from the memories of some of the older folks, had called for a Victory Garden campaign. Every last seed in town had been snapped up and once beautiful lawns, yet another luxury of a pampered society, had been spaded over for lettuce, squash, beans, anything that could be eaten.

“Still, we are on the real edge now of running out.”

“Damn it, Doc,” Kate snapped. “We still got forty head of cattle here, a couple of hundred hogs, the horses, and Swannanoa maybe even more.”

“One cow a day for ten thousand?” Kellor asked. “At best two ounces of meat, less than a cheap hamburger at a fast-food joint without the bread. Ok, two cows a day and a hog. Five ounces of meat, barely enough, and the cows in both communities are gone in not much more than days, every last one. Then the horses, maybe another ten to twelve days. Then the rest of the hogs. Seventy days max and we’ve eaten our way through the lot. Then what?”

“And that’s at everyone getting about a thousand to twelve hundred calories a day. Then we are out of food, one hundred percent bankrupt.” He looked at Charlie.

“You got to plan until next spring, four times longer than what we’ve been talking about.”

Charlie looked at John, who reluctantly nodded in agreement.

“Don’t count on anything from the outside, perhaps never. To get to us from Charleston, they’ll first have to reestablish control in Columbia, then up to Greenville, Spartanburg. There are millions of people down there, just a couple of hundred thousand up here… and besides… they’ll think we’re ok up here in the mountains. Everyone always thinks that up the mountains there’ll be plenty of food.”

“What about trying to send Don Barber down there with his plane?” Tom asked.

There were several nods of agreement.

“At least it’d let them know we are up here.”

Charlie shook his head.

“That plane is valuable beyond measure for keeping an eye on things locally. Its range, though, fully gassed is less than two hundred miles.

“We could rig up some kind of strap-on tanks to take it one way into Charleston,” Tom said.

“Why?” Charlie asked.

“To get help,” Tom said. “For God’s sake, at least he could come back with some medicine. Doc Kellor could give him a list. Antibiotics, anesthesia…”

He hesitated and drew in his breath.

“Maybe even some insulin.”

John looked at him, not sure how to react, it was as if a taboo had been broken, to not speak of the threat to Jennifer. He could see the look in the police chief’s eyes, they were filled with compassion.

John couldn’t speak, a flash thought that maybe Tom was right. Surely whoever was down there would answer their appeal.

“I’m sorry, Tom,” it was Charlie, speaking softly. “And John, God in heaven knows I’m sorry for you, too, but I have to say no.”

John couldn’t speak, feeling that his worst nightmare had just been laid bare before this group, that a decision he now desired was obviously for himself, and the logical one that he knew Charlie would drive for he would be forced to agree with, even though he wanted to stand up and scream for them to agree with Tom or he’d quit being on the council.

He was embarrassed to realize he was actually trembling, eyes filling up with tears.

“It is a hard question of logic,” Charlie continued, unable to look directly at John. “We definitely do have Don Barber’s plane, we need that to keep an eye on the territory around us, it is crucial for the survival of all of us. We all know the rumors about various gangs starting to form up, only Don Barber and his L-3 can give us advance warning if they are coming this way.

“Sure the Navy might be down there in Charleston, but John, you yourself said there’s millions of people along the coast they are already tending to. And besides, I think Doc Kellor would agree with me, how much insulin do you think they carry on board Navy ships, most likely none at all, and what was down there has most likely already been used.”

John lowered his head, he did not want anyone to see his tears.

“If I was in command down there,” Charlie continued, his voice sad, remote, “I’d give Don Barber some platitudes, maybe a few bags of antibiotics at best and a promise that help was on the way. I will not risk our only plane for that.

“And besides, worst case scenario, they just might confiscate Don’s plane and that would be the end of it.

“If they are starting to rebuild down there it will be a step at time,” Charlie continued, “restringing wire into the adjoining town, establishing order, then moving farther in. And with each step it’ll mean more to feed; get as far as Columbia and they’ll add a million or more extra people to take care of, or down the coast to Savannah another million or two. No, they’re not going to come up here with relief supplies based on an appeal of a few thousand of us up in the mountains arriving via an antique plane.”

There was a long moment of silence until John finally nodded his head in agreement.

“Charlie, I got a hard proposition to make,” Kellor said breaking the silence. Go on.

“So far we’ve been very egalitarian about the food. Everyone on the same rations, young children and expectant and nursing mothers the only exemptions for getting extra, something absolutely no one would object to. But you do have to consider that we might have to categorize.”

“What?”

John rousing from his shock regarding trying to get insulin could see it coming and looked over at Charlie. Charlie just did not seem to be in form; quick decisions were coming slower now. Was it just simple exhaustion, or could it be something else?

“Higher rations for the police force, those doing hard labor, and the militia,” Kellor said.

“I don’t like this,” Kate interjected. “The old line from Animal Farm that pigs are more equal than other animals.”

“Kate, the level for rations has dropped below maintaining efficiency for doing anything much beyond getting out of bed and then just sitting all day. We got people up trying to contain that fire along Haw Creek; guys fighting forest fires used to get high-energy diets of upwards of four thousand or more calories a day. Same with soldiers. You can’t expect people to do hard work on nine hundred calories a day. If we do, in three more weeks everyone will be in collapse, too weak to even start bringing in the harvest from the few farms with corn, let alone defend the gap, contain people wandering around insane…”

Kellor’s voice died off and he just sat there numb.

“We have to do it,” John said.

“John, I kind of thought you’d be on my side in this,” Kate replied. John shook his head.

“Precedents throughout history. Ancient and medieval cities under siege, soldiers always received more rations. Though it was more for psychological and morale impact during World War II, our rationing was always directed towards getting resources to the men on the front line. In every other country in that war, the rationing was very real and at times,” he hesitated, “a form of triage.

“Doc mentioned Leningrad. There they had to make the hard assessment that there simply wasn’t enough food for everyone to stay alive, so it came down to soldiers and then essential workers getting enough to keep going, another level down for expectant and new mothers, children, and…”

He stopped speaking and looked back at Kellor.

“We have just over ten thousand souls in our communities. About enough food still on hand to keep a thousand, maybe two thousand in top health until autumn, when we’ll at least get some small amount of food in from the cornfields and orchards. We try and feed everyone at the same level, I doubt if many will survive, dying from both starvation and also being overrun by desperate people from the outside more hungry than us. Long before that, what semblance of order we have will totally break down as well.”

“Sweet Jesus, are we talking about deliberately starving some of our people to death?” Kate cried. “This is America, for God’s sake.”

No one spoke for a moment. For John it was the word “America” that hit. The land of milk and honey, the land where obesity had been considered a major health issue, almost a national right, with food chains boasting about who had the biggest, fattest burger. He often wondered, even then, what reaction there would be if such ads had been sent to Liberia, Yemen, or Afghanistan, showing America’s excessive waste.

“‘Deliberately starving people to death’ is putting it rather bluntly,” Kellor replied defensively.

“Death is rather blunt,” Kate shot back.

“It’s the harsh reality,” John said, his voice distant. “It is that simple. We have x amount of food and y amount of people. The formula collapses in the next couple of weeks. The y amount of people is going to have to be subdivided if any are to survive.”

“We have to do it,” Charlie said, his voice soft.

“Well, I’m not going along with it,” Kate said.

“Remember, Kate, this is not a democracy at the moment. If you wish not to go along with it and stop drawing rations, that is fine with me.”

“The rest of you here?” Kate shouted. “Now you do have Animal Farm; you have the commissars and the famines in Russia. Do you think people will stand for it?”

“Personally, I’m not going to draw extra rations,” Charlie said.

“Charlie,” Doc interjected, “you have to. I know your health; remember, I was your family doc. You have a touch of hypertension and acid reflux. You’re slowing down even now; everyone in this room can see it.”

“It’s just exhaustion,” Charlie replied sharply. “Let me get a good night’s sleep undisturbed.”

“Bullshit,” Doc snapped. “You’re doing the work of two men and eating the same as everyone else. You’ll burn out; you are burning out.”

“Well, it’d be one helluva note to announce we’re going to starve a lot of people around here and I’m walking around fat and happy. Screw that.”

John lowered his head.

“He’s right,” John whispered. “Though I disagree on one point. Not a word of this is to be discussed publicly.”

“You do sound like a commissar now!” Kate shouted. He glared at her.

“Think I like what I just said?” John replied sharply. “But Charlie, if you go outside and say that some are now going to get more rations it will be a riot within the hour. I’d suggest we quietly move some extra rations up to the college campus. What we’re talking about primarily applies to them anyhow. Those getting extra food get it there and there only. But as for Charlie’s personal example, that’s his decision and, I’ll have to say, the moral one.”

Charlie nodded and slowly sat down.

“Moving food in secret? Secret eating while others starve?” Kate shook her head. “I never dreamed we’d come to this point so fast, and agree to it, here, right here in our town.”

“The first that would get hit by the rioting are the outsiders,” John said. “There’s been a semblance of acceptance, some bonding, that would disintegrate, Kate, and I’m willing to bet would turn into murders and lynch-ings, a massive scream to throw everyone out who wasn’t living here the day of the event. Then our two communities will start glaring at each other. Frankly, Swannanoa has more food per person than we do, a lot more with their extra cattle and hogs. We’ll split and those here will start screaming about marching there to take their cattle.

“You hear that, Kate? It’s like something out of ancient history, the Bible; we’ll be raiding each other for cattle. Then it will be every man for himself and we’ll all die as a result if someone from the outside, with some organization and strength, then comes rolling in. There’s your choice, Kate. Go ahead. What should we do?”

She glared at him, unable to reply.

John looked over to Tom, who had remained silent throughout the debate, and Tom nodded in agreement.

“I know I couldn’t keep order. I’d have to call in the college militia, and even there, most of those kids would be defined as outsiders as well, and the mob ready to turn on them. It would be a helluva mess, Kate. John’s right, we have to do this, but we have to keep it quiet.”

“So in other words, horde some food for a selected few, do it in secret so that by the time the rest of the people figure it out, they’ll be too weak to act.

John stared at her. “Yes.”

“You bastards.”

“Kate, it’s been this way throughout history. America, though, hasn’t faced it since,” he paused, “maybe parts of the South in the Civil War. Even then that was just limited. We’ve never seen anything like this before, but in reality, it has to be done if any survive. We can’t keep social order, defend ourselves, and at the same time give out some kind of equal amounts of food to everyone else. If we try that, everyone will die.”

“I won’t accept extra food.”

“No one is forcing you to,” John said softly.

“Kate, you cannot discuss this outside this room,” Charlie said sharply.

She glared at him.

“Or what?”

“I’ll have you arrested.”

“Sieg heil, mein Fuhrer,” and she raised her hand in the fascist salute.

“Damn it, Kate,” Charlie snapped, his voice almost breaking. “I don’t want this any more than you, so don’t ride me on it.”

She lowered her head.

“It has to stay in this room,” John said sharply.

“Are you getting an extra?” Kate asked.

“Hell, no. We’re still getting by.”

“All right, Charlie. You don’t take extra rations, none of us here do, and I’ll go along with it.”

“Tom has to be on the list for extra rations,” Kellor said.

“Like hell.”

John looked at Tom. His rotund pre-war form had melted away quickly, belt drawn in now by several notches.

“All police, firefighters, the militia, those doing essential work,” John said, “and grave diggers.”

There was a long silence.

“And Doc, you, too,” John said.

Doc nodded.

“I won’t hide behind false heroics. I hate the thought, but I know my performance is degrading fast. I set a compound fracture yesterday, one of the Quincy boys, fell off a horse. I thought I was going to faint towards the end of it. If we don’t have doctors and nurses in this town who can function, well, we’re all dead anyhow then.”

“How many will we lose?” Charlie asked.

“When?”

“You said the curve is going to start going up again. How many do we lose in two or three months?” Doc looked around the room.

“One-third to one-half if we follow the plan just outlined.”

“And if we don’t?” Kate asked.

“We drag it out a little longer, Kate, by not much more than thirty days extra; then everyone will be dead by winter.” No one spoke.

“Malthus is finally being proven right,” Charlie said. “Our population here is three, four times higher than the carrying capacity. It was all about infrastructure. Out in Southern California right now I bet hundreds of thousands of tons of vegetables are rotting. The Midwest will be up to their eyeballs in unpicked corn in another six weeks. But there is no way to get that from there to here.”

Silence, and John knew all were dwelling on food, the standard thoughts of someone going into starving and malnutrition. He could picture the hundreds of thousands of head of cattle out in Texas and Oklahoma. For that matter, just two hundred miles east of here, the hog farms. They were contemptible, usually rammed into poorer communities, five to ten thousand hogs raised at a clip in sheds where they could barely move from birth until slaughter, the stench and pollution killing property value for miles around… and to have one of them here now would be greeted with people falling on their knees and thanking God.

But even then, John realized, it wouldn’t work. The farms were dependent on hundreds of tons of feed being shipped in each week. If those farms had not already been looted, the waste going on was most likely beyond imagining. The animals starving to death, people who almost thought meat was grown inside a pink foam package now trying to chase a hog down, kill it, and dress it. No, they’d cut off what they could, others would join in like vultures, and half of it would then just rot in the sun. If the hogs escaped, they would be into the woods now, wild boar in short order and damn dangerous.

Charlie finally stirred.

“Anything else?”

Silence.

“Minor point, but it’s starting to get dangerous. Dogs.” John looked over at him.

“A lot of dogs are starting to run loose now. They’re starving and they’re going wild. We had an incident up on Fifth Street last night; two children got cornered by a pack of dogs. Fortunately, the father had a shotgun and dropped several of them; the rest took off.”

After the grimness of the previous conversation John knew he shouldn’t be reacting so hard, but he suddenly felt a tightness in his throat. The two fools Zach and Ginger were indeed getting hungry, begging ferociously at every meal, and yet still the family would share a few scraps. Most of the squirrels John had dropped over the last week had been tossed to the dogs raw.

“I think we have to order the shooting of all dogs in the town,” Charlie said.

“No, damn it, no,” Tom snapped. “I’ll burn in hell before I’d go home and in front of my kids take Rags outside and blow his brains out. No way. If they’re running loose and proving to be a danger, sure, but not that.”

“What did the father do with the bodies of the dogs he shot?” Kellor asked quietly.

“Jesus, I never thought of that,” Charlie replied.

“How many dogs in this town?” Kellor asked. “At least a couple of thousand. That’s enough meat for full rations for three or four days at least, half rations for a week and a half.”

“You can go straight to hell, Doc!” Tom shouted, and John was surprised to see tears in Tom’s eyes. For the first time since this crisis had started, from the initial panic, the executions, the fight at the gap, it was now Tom who was breaking into tears.

“We got Rags the week my youngest was born. He’s been with us ten years, as much a part of the family as any person. He’d die to defend us, and frankly, I’d do the same for him. I’m not giving him up and that’s final.”

“Tom, what I was talking about earlier,” Kellor said, “that’s only the first starve-off. I didn’t even have the heart to talk about the second starve-off. Those that survive into the fall, chances are by the end of the winter most will be dead anyhow. Do you think any dogs will still be alive by then? And if so, they’ll be feral, reverting back to packs of wolves, killing people to survive.”

“Help will be here long before then!” Tom shouted. “It’s starting already; you heard what John said.

“Charlie, I don’t care what the hell you order, I will not do it to Rags or any other dog that the owners are still taking care of.”

Tom was red faced, in John’s eyes almost like a boy in a sentimental movie about a dog or other beloved pet, the obligatory scene when the kid is about to lose the dog, but we all know that at the end of the film, except in Old Yeller and The Yearling, things will be ok. And as for those two films, John had seen both as a kid and refused to ever see them again.

He was in tears now thinking of Zach and Ginger. How would Jennifer react? Ginger was her buddy, the two inseparable. It was terrifying enough trying to avoid the fate looming for Jennifer, but to do that to her, to kill Ginger? No, John would refuse as well. And he knew, as well, that in his heart, even without Jennifer, he would reach the same conclusion.

“I’m siding with Tom,” John said.

“John, we have to leave sentiment behind,” Kellor said.

“It’s more than that,” John snapped back. “It’s yet another step backwards in who we are.”

“John, ten minutes ago you agreed to letting some people starve faster than others. What in hell do you mean about stepping backwards?”

“I know this is illogical. It’s just that we’re Americans. We and the Brits especially are alike in this. We see something more in our pets than just brute beasts. For old people alone, they’re a final source of comfort and love. For children, the beloved buddy that understands even when adults don’t…”

He was ashamed, he was starting to cry.

“I’d kill every dog in the town if I could save one life by it,” Kellor snapped back.

“That will take something out of us forever, maybe a line I don’t want to cross, would rather not live in… No.”

“The line is there,” Kellor replied. “It is there no matter what.” Charlie stirred.

“How about this then? Loose animals will be shot and given to the communal food supply. Owners must keep pets inside or leashed. If an owner decides to dispatch a pet on their own, they can keep it for their own food supply. Is that agreeable?”

Tom jumped on it and nodded.

“Fine then.”

“And every day they’ll lose weight, that could be turned into food,” Kellor snapped, “and eat food that people will give to them, even as they’re starving.”

“That’s their choice,” Tom replied.

He seemed ashamed of his emotional display, wiped his face, and stood up.

“Anything else, Charlie?” Charlie shook his head sadly.

“John, that broadcast we should monitor from now on. We’ll pull an old car radio, get some batteries, and rig out an antenna.”

“Good idea.”

“Maybe they’ll be coming soon,” Charlie said hopefully. “Sure, Charlie. Maybe they will.”

John left the meeting and started for home. The radio was now set on the dial to the Voice of America channel, but it was only static, maybe a whisper of a voice for a second or two, then static again.

He thought of stopping in to see Hamid, perhaps try to trade something for a few cigarettes to round out his day, even though it was still only mid-morning. The meeting had worn him to the edge.

He opened the glove compartment; extra ammo for the Glock strapped to his side was in there, along with what he called his reserve, a cigarette. He lit it up, inhaling deeply as he pulled onto State Street and drove past the elementary school. The once beautiful front lawn was now ragged, beat down, torn out in places. Some kids were down in the playground, playing baseball. They already looked skinnier to him, reminding him of photos of German kids playing in the rubble after World War II.

The cook fire was going. Today it was horse; one of the older beasts, close to death, had been shot. A crowd was gathered round it, butchering it, legs sticking up, yet another memory of a World War II film, of German civilians in rubble-strewn Berlin, hacking at a dead animal. One of Tom’s men standing by, shotgun cradled casually under his arm, was watching the proceedings. Everything, every ounce of fat, bone, innards, everything would go into the kettle. Some greens would be mixed in, and there were at least fifty or more people standing around listlessly, watching every move hungrily.

John passed the school, continued on, the interstate to his left. Makala’s Beemer still resting where it had rolled to a stop thirty-five days ago. He was tempted to drive the extra mile up to the isolation hospital, stand outside, and call for her. If he stepped in, he was stuck there for at least three days. He missed her. He slowed, drove past the turnoff to his house, and continued on, but then on reaching the turn to the conference center he figured he’d better not. So he continued on, driving several hundred more yards to a bridge that spanned over the interstate just behind the gap. He got out of the car, nursing his cigarette for one more puff before he got down to the filter.

The sound of the car running caused some of his old students, standing guard on the bridge, to turn. At the sight of him they waved.

His old students, my kids, he always called them. Hell, Mary and I were the same age when we met and no one could have defined us as kids to ourselves and she most definitely was not a kid at twenty… He remembered so many insane nights with her when neither got a wink of sleep till dawn and then they went to classes. And yet now, the years stretching away, those standing guard were indeed kids in his eyes.

They were uniformed. Blue jogging trousers of the college, blue long-sleeve shirts, college baseball caps… and guns. Several were in the baggy white hazmat suits. One of the girls, hunting rifle poised, was talking across the double barrier of stalled cars to a band of refugees on the other side. She had sat in his 101 class only the semester before. Cute, yes, a bit sexy looking with her long blond hair, blue eyes, and tight blouses, but still just a kid to him now, his own daughter not much more than two years younger.

And now his former student stood with rifle poised, drilled to fire if anyone did indeed try to scramble over the cars and break through.

One of the doctors, helped by a nurse, both in biohazard suits, was walking along a line of refugees who had been admitted through the barrier, looking at old driver’s licenses, interviewing, maybe finding the one or two who might be allowed to stay, their skills on the checklist John and Charlie had created…. Anyone who worked with steam, electricians, doctors, farmers, precision tool and die makers, oil and gas chemists, the list went on.

Someone was culled out of the line and stepped forward. He anxiously looked back and was then relieved when a woman and three children were allowed to follow him. Five more mouths, John thought. He hoped the trade in skills was a damn good one as they were led off via a path to where Makala worked.

Someone with a hand-pumped weed sprayer now walked down the line, spraying down each person in turn with a mixture cooked up by Kellor. At least it would take care of lice, fleas, but also was a psychological tool, to remind them that they were somehow different once past the line and would be kept apart.

The group set off, led and followed by two students in biohazard suits who were toting shotguns. Behind the cavalcade a Volkswagen Bug followed, “Black Mountain Militia” stenciled on the side. Inside were a student and one of Tom’s policemen, any weapons confiscated from the line of refugees piled in the back to be returned once they reached the far side of the barrier at Exit 59.

“Hey, Colonel, sir!”

It was Washington Parker up by the barrier. John waved.

Parker waved for him to come down and there seemed to be an urgency to his gesturing.

The refugees were now filing under the bridge and the sight was heartbreaking. They wore ragged, torn, filthy clothing, several pushing supermarket shopping carts with children piled inside.

John went to the edge of the bridge to slide down the embankment to the road.

“Good morning, Colonel, sir.”

Startled, he saw one of his students lying in the high grass, dressed in hunting camo, face darkened green. It was Brett Huffman, one of his ballplayers, a darn nice kid, backwoods type from up in Madison County, baseball scholarship with a real interest in history and wanted to teach high school. A kid who was a natural leader and looked up to by his classmates. John noticed the black sergeant’s stripes stenciled on his hunting jacket. He had a wad of tobacco tucked into his jaw.

“Brett, just what the hell—,” John started to ask.

“Vinnie Bartelli is on the other side of the bridge, staked out like me. If there’s any trouble at the barrier, or any of them folks down there try and bolt…”

He said nothing for a moment, just patted the 30/30 Savage with mounted scope.

“I had to shoot one yesterday, sir. Good shot, though, got him in the leg, thank God, didn’t have to kill him.”

John couldn’t reply. There was a bit of tightness in Brett’s voice but already the sort of casualness John had heard so often in debriefings after Desert Storm. Good young kids trained to be killers and trying to be hardened to it, though it was still a shock.

“I guess, though, with a 30/30 through the leg he’s a goner anyhow.”

“You did what you had to do,” John offered reassuringly.

“Still, sir. Reminded me of my first deer. Same kind of feeling, maybe a bit worse.”

“Take care of yourself, Brett.”

Yes, sir.

John slid down the embankment and out onto the road. He looked back. Brett was impossible to see. It registered, so many of the college kids from small towns, more than a few hunters, or Boy Scouts or just outdoor types, of course they’d learn, and darn quick. The refugees were moving along on the other side, a long strung-out column.

They moved slowly, a few listlessly looking up at John. They were like something out of another age, some so obvious caught ill prepared, a man in a three-piece business suit, scuffed worn dress shoes, bandage around his head. Looked like a lawyer or upper-level corporate type… with no skills to sell here for a bowl of watery soup. Parents side by side, exhausted, pushing a shopping cart, the wheels worn, squeaking, two children inside, both asleep, pale faced.

Some refugees were actually barefoot. Few had realized on that first day what a premium would soon be placed on shoes, good shoes for walking, a lot of walking. He cursed himself for not thinking of it as well and grabbing some extra pairs from the camping supply store the first day. Civil War campaigns had often hinged on which side had better shoes, which usually wore out in little more than a month of tough campaigning. Those hiking a hundred and fifty miles in wing tips or even just plain old canvas tennis shoes were soon down to nothing, and more than one walking by actually had a different shoe on each foot.

A woman who reminded him a bit of Makala on the first night, very sexy gray business jacket and skirt, stockings still on but absolutely shredded, heels knocked off her shoes to try to make them more walkable, was limping along.

She caught his eye, forced a smile, and brushed back her greasy, limp hair.

“Hi, my name’s Carol,” she said, and moved towards the median barrier, her hand extended. He could see the lost world in her. Sharp professional-looking woman, intelligent face, sexy and using it to advantage, the hand extended for a warm handshake to start the meeting… which she was used to having go her way.

“Ma’am, step back and away.” It was one of his students, face concealed in the hazmat suit, with rifle leveled. “Keep on the white line of the road as you were told.”

Carol stopped, looking back.

“I just wanted to say hi.”

The student shouldered her rifle.

“Ma’am, please move back. I will shoot if you try to go over that barrier.”

The other refugees in the line looked back. A few froze; others immediately scrambled to the far side of the road.

“The rest of you,” the student shouted, “do not attempt to leave the road!”

Carol looked at John appealingly.

“What kind of place is this?” she said, and her voice started to choke.

“We’re a town trying to stay alive,” John said.

“Ma’am!”

John held up his hand towards the student.

“At ease there, lower your weapon. I’ll handle this.”

“Colonel, sir, don’t let her get any closer to you. I don’t want to see you under quarantine.”

“Colonel?” Carol asked, still forcing the professional business smile as if just introduced. “You are the officer in charge then. I’m pleased to meet you.

He tried to smile.

“Former colonel, college professor now. And no, I am not in charge here.”

“I saw some of your people separating that family off and leading them away. Word on the other side of your fence is that if people have specialized skills you’re letting them stay.”

John took that in. If this was indeed known on the other side, security would have to be tightened. People would think up any kind of skill or profession and lie their way through the interview.

“Are they being allowed to stay?”

“I don’t know,” John lied.

“They asked us what we did. Is that it?”

“Really, miss, I don’t know.”

“Look, I’m a public relations consultant with Reynolds Tobacco.”

She looked at the student with the gun still aimed at her.

“Colonel, to be frank, your operation needs some upgrading, a better interface with the public. I can help you set up a plan for that in no time that can help you avoid a lot of problems in the future.”

It was a delivery, a sales pitch, cool, professional, and listening to her broke his heart. She actually was used to winning that way and believed it would work now.

“I’m sorry, miss. I don’t make that decision here. The doctor and the police do. I’m sorry.”

And in that instant her professional business poise, a vestige of the old world, collapsed.

She took a step closer and now it was both hands out in a gesture of appeal.

“Please let me stay!” He couldn’t respond. She took a step closer.

“Do you want to sleep with me?” Carol asked. “I’m serious. Let me stay. You’ll like me.”

She looked down at herself and her ragged suit.

“Once I get cleaned up, believe me, you’ll like me,” and she looked at him with head slightly turned now, eyes widening. “You have a tub at home? I’d love a bath and when you see me then… you’ll really like me. You can even help me bathe; I know you’d like that.”

“Carol, please don’t,” John said. “Don’t do this to yourself. Please don’t.”

She broke down sobbing.

“Don’t do this to myself?” she cried, her voice rising to near hysteria.

“Offer you a piece to stay alive? Three nights ago I was raped. Raped by four men who said they had some food hidden in a shack. I half-expected it but was so damn hungry I no longer cared. Do you hear that?”

“I’m sorry.”

She sobbed.

“And they gave me a bowl of watery soup in the morning, one of them did, and I felt it was damn near worth the trade. Please, Colonel, I’ll spend the night with you if you let me stay and just give me a little something to eat.”

And then she just stepped forward, heading towards the median barrier.

“I’ll shoot!” the student guard screamed.

John held his hands out appealingly, looking towards his student. “Don’t!”

The rifle went off, Carol screaming, ducking down, the other refugees flinging themselves to the pavement.

Either the guard had fired high or in her nervousness had missed. But the girl was already working the bolt, the ejected shell casing ringing loudly as it hit the pavement.

“Next one is to the head!” the student was screaming.

“Carol, don’t move!”

He started to move towards the median barrier, the hell with the quarantine.

“Colonel, don’t!”

It was Washington Parker, running up, Colt .45 drawn, but something now seemed to tell him to holster his pistol, the sight of it ready to trigger a panic.

He stepped in front of the student.

“Point that gun straight up please,” he said calmly, and she obeyed. Next he turned towards the refugees.

“A mistake, people, nothing more. Please keep moving. There’s plenty of fresh water at Exit 64, you can rest a bit and wash up there.”

He pointed to the family with the children in the shopping cart.

“I bet your little ones need a bath. It’s just around the bend in the road. But you must stay in the center of the road.”

They started to get to their feet and moved back towards the white stripe dividing the two lanes.

Washington approached Carol, but not too closely.

“Ma’am, please stand up. No one will hurt you if you please stand up and back away from the median barrier.”

“Do as he says, Carol,” John interjected.

Shaking, she stood up.

John looked at her, and it was as if she was a different person. That the final shreds of pride, of decency, within her had disintegrated. A woman who but six weeks back most likely had a corner office, a parking slot with her name on it, a liberal expense account, and a damn good stock option had just tried to sell her body for a place to rest for a night and a bowl of soup.

“Carol, are you all right?”

She said nothing, features almost blank, turned, and fell back into the line of refugees.

Something told him with grim certainty she would not live much longer, shattered to the point that a razor blade across the wrists would be a welcomed relief. He was tempted to call her back and he stepped over the median barrier and actually took a step towards her. “Colonel, sir.”

He looked back. It was Washington, shaking his head no. Washington turned back on the student who had fired the shot. “Was that a warning shot or were you aiming at her?” Washington said. “I’m not sure,” and her voice was near breaking.

“You were wrong on two counts,” Washington snapped, and the girl was now at attention, trembling. “That woman had not yet tried to go over the barrier. Your orders are only to shoot if they go over the barrier or try to turn on you.”

“She was getting close to Professor Mather—I mean the colonel, sir.”

“I am not sir; I am Sergeant Parker. Remember your orders and abide by them. Now the second count. Was that a warning shot or not? Remember I told all of you I am the only one to give a warning shot. If you shoot, then do it to kill. A warning shot is a wasted bullet, and we’ve got precious few of them.”

“I think I aimed at her.”

Washington snatched the gun from the girl.

“Go back up to the barrier; you can help interview the refugees. I’m sending someone who has the guts to aim right to your place.”

The girl, crestfallen, turned and walked away, her shoulders beginning to shake.

Parker shouted for one of the boys by the barrier to walk escort with refugees and John came up to his side.

“A bit hard perhaps?” Washington asked. John shook his head.

“I’ve told my girls repeatedly, if you are going to shoot, shoot to kill. But that pathetic woman did not deserve to be shot at.”

“I know,” Washington sighed. “What did she do? Offer to sleep with your

“Yes.”

“I get it twenty times a day, and it’s not because I’m good-looking,” Washington said, his attempt at a joke falling flat.

“Sick. I’m hearing more and more stories up here about rape, murder, stealing even of baby formula. It’s getting desperate on the road. You were going to offer to let her stay, weren’t you?”

“Yeah. You could see it. She’s far over the edge. I think she’ll be dead in a few more days.”

The two looked towards Carol, who was at the back of the column, staggering along.

Washington sighed.

“Yeah, God save her. You’re right. You can look at these people and tell who still just might pull through. Poor woman, she’s not one of them. No place in this world for her now, and what she has left to sell is fading.”

John lowered his head.

“Damn all this,” he sighed.

“I’m now seeing hundreds like her every day,” Washington said wearily. “Sir, we let one in beyond those that can help us all survive, we break down.”

He couldn’t reply. He thought of the piece of a candy bar in his car, a survival ration if he got stuck. He was half-tempted to go get it, but if he did, it might not be there for Jennifer when she needed it.

“Maybe she’ll get lucky,” Washington said. “Maybe some guy farther down the road will take her in.”

“God save us if we are really at this point already.”

“Sir. I saw it in Nam. Hell, nineteen-year-old GIs thought it was heaven. A piece for a couple of bucks? But you looked at those girls, and I tell you southern Asian girls are some of the most beautiful in the world, and it made you sick. Fifteen-year-old kids that should have been in school, out selling their tail to feed their parents and kid sisters and brothers.

“And now it’s come to America….”

Washington shook his head.

“Damn all war…,” he sighed.

“You wanted me down here for something?”

“Some bad rumors starting to come in this morning; I think Charlie needs to know. I’m going to head back into town shortly to tell him.”

“What is it?”

“Refugees are talking about something called the Posse taking over the interstate. They’re down in the Charlotte area. Some said they’re moving up Interstate 77 towards Statesville. Have a lot of vehicles that run.”

“The Posse? Hell, it sounds like the Wild West.”

“No. It’s worse. The Posse was a name for a pre-war gang with branches all around the country. Punks, gangbangers who would pop a bullet into someone’s head as a joke before this even started, drug dealers, the scum of the earth long before we ever got hit and the ones most ruthless to survive now than our worst nightmares have become real.”

John realized just how really isolated their small town was. Several years back the Asheville paper had run a couple of articles about gang activity starting to flare up, but the local police had put it down fast.

“The Posse. One poor woman we let through with the last bunch said she was held prisoner by them for several days and escaped. Don’t even want to talk about what they did to her, but it was beyond sick. Everyone’s talking about it on the other side of the barrier. Sort of like an urban legend running with the refugee bands on the road. Some say a thousand or more and well armed. They’re moving like ancient barbarians out there.”

“Damn,” John sighed, and yet again movie images, the Road Warrior films and all the cheap imitations of the genre back in the 1980s and early 1990s.

“I think we better start getting more vigilant. Just a gut feeling if this is real, they’ll finally head our way. They’ll figure Asheville, up in the mountains, must be loaded with food, and may be a good place for them to take over and hole up. They’ll follow the trail of refugees and wind up here,” Washington said.

“I heard a radio broadcast,” John said.

“You mean Voice of America?” Washington replied.

“How did you know?”

“I was sitting up here last night, keeping an eye on things. The radio in that beautiful Mustang still works. Damn, I just turned it on. Sitting in an old Mustang, it was almost flashback time. Half-expected to hear Wolf-man Jack or Cousin Brucie.”

John chuckled.

“Yeah.”

“And loud and clear had the signal for about an hour or so. Just wish they’d knock off the patriotic stuff, play some old R & B or rock. Yeah, I heard it.”

“What do you think?”

“It’s propaganda for morale, nothing more. Maybe the news about the coastal towns is on the mark, but for the rest of us, today, next week, it’s bullshit. We got to look out for ourselves. I’m passing word at the barrier for people to turn around, to start heading for the coast. I know that’s insane, none have the strength to make it now, but maybe it will be a coun-terrumor that will work back down the line.” John nodded.

“Downside, though,” John said. “If the rumor hits that Posse crowd, that will move them up our way even faster. Under martial law every one of those bastards will be shot; the last thing they want now is any authority anywhere. We better work out a good tactical plan to defend this place against a serious attack right now and stop thinking about mob control or a few desperados trying to sneak in. If they have any ex-military types at all with them, they’ll do a probe first, then hit us hard. We got to keep an eye on our back doors, the railroad tunnel and the old back roads down to Old Fort. We’re no longer dealing with refugees; we’ll be facing an army as ruthless as anything in history.”

Washington nodded in agreement.

“I think I’ll go home,” John said.

The two shook hands and John went back up the slope by the bridge. He nodded to Brett concealed in the grass.

“Fran got a bit jumpy there. Glad she didn’t shoot that woman.”

“Same here,” though John wondered if a bullet in her head might have been an act of mercy.

He got in the Edsel and headed for home.

As he pulled into the drive, the two fools Ginger and Zach came off the deck to greet him. He knelt down to pet both and found himself hugging them.

“Daddy!”

It was Jennifer, Pat with her. “Everything ok?”

“Sure, Daddy.”

He looked at Jennifer closely. She had lost a few pounds. At every meal Jen had been pushing as much food into her as possible, meat and vegetables, which right now were still boiled dandelions. He looked up at the orchard. If only the trees were peach trees; in another several weeks they could start to gather the peaches. The apples were growing, but far too slow, it seemed.

He had never had any real interest in the eight trees, other than their beauty in the spring. The apples were rather sour in the fall, and they usually just left the fruit there to drop, delighted when the apples lured in bears to feed on them.

“She had to eat a little chocolate earlier,” Pat said. “Blood sugar went down.”

“Snitch,” Jennifer snapped.

“I promised your dad I’d keep an eye on you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

He hugged both of them, the two arguing as he went into the house. Jen was half-asleep, book laid across her chest, an old book on the Civil War.

“Where’s Elizabeth?”

“Oh, she and Ben went out for a walk,” Jen said, and sat up, rubbing her eyes.

“They’re out there walking a lot these days,” John said.

“Well, Son-in-law, you better sit down.”

“Why?”

“I think you need to talk to the two of them.”

“About what?”

“Sex, getting pregnant.”

“Oh, damn, Jen, not now, not today, I don’t even want to think about it in relationship to her.”

“Few fathers do. But frankly, my son-in-law, I think your sixteen-year-old daughter is now, how shall we say, a woman.”

“Jesus, don’t even talk to me about this now.”

“Tyler and I had you and Mary figured out rather quickly.”

He blushed. Jen had never said that before. And he looked over at her.

“Almost to the day, I bet. At least I did. Tyler, like any dad, went totally blind to reality, and John, I see it in your daughter now.”

“Jen, not now,” he sighed. “There’s so damn much else going on.”

Jen nodded slowly.

“And you don’t want to face this issue. OK, but you better face up to it, John. Those two are scared, don’t see much of a future ahead, the old restraints fall away. I’m old enough to remember the Second World War; it was the same then. Eighteen-year-old kids who knew each other just a couple days or weeks would figure ‘what the hell’ and either marry on the spot or have to get married within a few months. Our ‘Greatest Generation’ stuff tends to make us forget just how young and scared they were back then. So face up to the reality, dear son-in-law. You’re the history professor; you know what happens inside kids when there’s a war on.”

Too much was happening today. He stood up, peeked into Jennifer’s room. She and Pat were playing a game with Jennifer’s Pokemon cards.

Her skin color looked off, a bit yellowish, pale.

Dear God, but one planeload of supplies into Asheville, but one, and my worst worry is gone.

“Would you talk to her?” he asked, looking back at Jen.

“Coward, and yes, I already have. But I think you as a dad better talk to both of them as well.”

“OK, later,” he said a bit too quickly.

Looking at Zach and Ginger, John went to the gun cabinet. He pulled out the 20-gauge and headed out the door, the two dogs slowly trotting along behind him, knowing that today there just might be some food if their master and provider got lucky.