Fail State, page 26
part #2 of End of Days Series
“She’s in San Francisco,” Beatrice said, making it sound like an accusation.
“Yeah, and we just came from there a week or so back,” Ellie said. “So I know what she’s dealing with.”
She gave Beatrice her serious face.
Just like Karl had done for her back on the boat.
“If your mom could get here she would, Beatrice. But she can’t, so the thing she would want most in the world is for you to get to your dad. We can do that. If you want to come along. It’s your call.”
Fenton started to interrupt but Ellie shut him down with a fierce, warning expression.
“I want to go home,” Pascal said, and the tears came.
Beatrice held out a little longer, but not too long.
The army provided a Humvee and driver to get them back to the river where the Lasseter’s Reef was anchored.
Before they cast off, Karl asked if he could have a couple of minutes to talk with the soldier who’d driven them.
A couple of minutes turned into an hour, and the Port Police controlling bridge started to complain. But a sergeant in combat camouflage took them aside and chilled them out. When Karl returned he was carrying a faded green duffel bag.
“Goodies,” he said, when Ellie asked him what was in the carryall.
Damo took up his station at the wheel. A whistle blew and the deck of the bridge climbed slowly away from the water.
He fed revs to the propellers and the boat slipped forward, heading north.
31
Silverton on the eve of the great battle
Jacques Loubert and Lachie Saunders seal the last panel of glass in the hot house they have just finished building at the northern end of the town Common. A small party of volunteers, mostly kids from the small Silverton Consolidated High School, clap and cheer as Loubert holds aloft a caulking gun, waving it like a winning pennant before an appreciative homecoming crowd. With the summers so hot and drawn out these days it will be a few weeks before the first hard frost lays on the ground, but the high school science teacher promises he can tease eleven or twelve inches of growth a day from the almost magical green spears of any asparagus planted right away.
Watching from across Main Street, Bob Shapcott, ninety-something years young, sits on his park bench smoking a Pall Mall. They moved his bench last week, during all the fuss and bother about the computers. Bob used to sit under the statue of John Mullan Jr., but there are peas or potatoes growing there now, and the wooden bench where Shapcott has long enjoyed the guilty pleasure of watching others work hard now sits on the sidewalk out front of Edwin Fholer’s pharmacy. In Bob’s experience, the feeling of guilt is always more pleasurable when other folks are hard at work on a fella’s own behalf, and he is looking forward to seeing how them taters fry up when they are good and grown. There are pictures in the county library from the town’s early days and they show Chinamen in black pyjamas and conical straw hats tending to market gardens around about where Frenchy Loubert has built his greenhouse. The irony is not lost on Bob, who has himself contributed to the commonwealth by handing over his four prize chickens—known locally as the Gang of Four—to Selectwoman Bochenski. Natalie, granddaughter of Vic Bochenski with whom Bob jumped into France, back in ’44, is in charge of wrangling foodstuffs and other necessaries, which is another one of them historical ironies, because of how her grandad was well known as the champion scrounger of the 101st back in the day. Or maybe it’s more coincidence than irony, Bob Shapcott thinks as he takes a long drag on the Pall Mall, closing his eyes and enjoying the rich but gentle burn of the cigarette smoke as it fills his lungs. Bob has always enjoyed the crossword and finding the right word is important to him. So much so that the difference between coincidence and irony is the last thought he ever has, sitting on his favourite bench, with his eyelids closed against the late afternoon sun. In a left-handed gift from the Almighty, the gossamer-thin walls of millions of blood vessels in Bob’s parietal cortex burst under pressure, caused in part by decades of overindulging in fried potatoes and Pall Malls. The hemorrhagic stroke kills him swiftly, but softly. The butt of his cigarette falls to the concrete sidewalk and burns out. It appears to passersby as though Bob Shapcott has dozed off on his favourite park bench.
Selectwoman Natalie Bochenski smiles as she crosses the Common and catches sight of old Mister Shapcott counting sheep on a wooden bench recently moved under the awning in front of Fholer’s Pharmacy. A guardsman, armed with a shotgun, stands watch over the premises, which houses the town’s dwindling supplies of medication. A shadow flits over her carefully cheerful expression as she recalls that the supply of Mister Shapcott’s heart medication is getting low. So too with Andy Elridge’s cancer meds, and the insulin that so many of Silverton’s older folk (and a few younger ones) rely on. As the manager of the town’s critical supplies—or supply shortages, she thinks mordantly—Natalie Bochenski is all too familiar with the hopeless math of trying to eke out the very limited store of pharmaceuticals that Fohler’s had in stock on Zero Day. She knows that even with severe rationing, supervised by Doctor Cornwell, the situation will soon be untenable. A cold word that; untenable. Not really descriptive of what will shortly happen.
With an effort of will, Selectwoman Bochenski turns her thoughts away from the imagined darkness of the near future. Instead, she reminds herself that after the ugly madness and violence at the Seattle gate that morning, and the unpleasant showdown between Darren O’Shannassy and Sheriff Muller that followed, it is lovely that the town can still provide for moments of grace like this; old Mister Shapcott enjoying the warmth of late afternoon sunlight. Bob looks so peaceful, snoozing and no doubt snoring away, she thinks, before suddenly losing her train of thought.
Why? Because Jonas Murdoch has appeared as if from nowhere with his lazy smile and those deeply dreamy blue eyes, and it is all that Selectwoman Bochenski can do not to flutter utterly away on the wings of her delight and surprise. Jonas Murdoch, in her opinion, could pass in the dark for a very believable Jon Snow and were she ever lucky enough to get him into a dark room she would be more than willing to do a thorough compare and contrast between the handsome outsider and the King in the North.
Jonas Murdoch is aware of the effect he has on Bochenski, which is why he approaches her seeking an extra thirty gallons of gas, ostensibly for Brad Rausch’s tow truck, which has been put to hard use all day reinforcing the outer wall. Brad Rausch also has an effect on Natalie Bochenski, but that is because he looks more like Ser Gregor Clegane in his late Zombie Mountain period than Jon Snow busting out the tastiest abs in the Night’s Watch. Better to go with Jonas for this part of the plan, they agree. With tiny, lopsided smiles and a darkly promising twinkle in his eyes, Jonas easily extracts a signed, handwritten chit for the gasoline, winking at Bochenski, “You’re my favourite,” when she hands over the precious voucher. He does not see Tomi Yates observing the transaction from across the street where she is conspiring with her besties Lisa Dees and Trudy Smith, but he would not much care even if he did see her. Jonas is no pussy-ass bitch and he will not be led around by the dick.
Leaned up against the pole outside Gary Kemble’s barbershop, Tomi Yates does well to keep the smirk off her face as she thinks how easily she’s led Jonas around by the dick. It is, admittedly, a very nice dick, and he does know how to use it. But so does she. She sees him over there, charming the grandma panties off that dried up old dyke Bochenski. She knows he’s scamming her for gas to top up the Mazda back at Rausch’s place. And if they have to get the fuck outta Dodge, Tomi is taking the Mazda and she’s rolling with Lisa and Trudy. Helen, her wackadoodle stepmother, owned a CX5 and Tomi knows that model of car intimately. Like literally. Helen threw her ass to the curb for fucking Tyson Garrett in the back seat. And the front seat. And on the hood, where she left a dent. When everything turns to shit, and Tomi is a realist about such things, she’s not waiting for anybody’s say-so that it’s every bitch for herself. She’s taking that car and burning her name in the motherfucking road.
Lisa Dees is, like, shittin’ kittens, even though Tomi says she’s got this sitch’ locked down. Lisa was actually in the city when the Chinese hacked everything. Lucky for her, she’d been on the edge of town, chasing an internship at Redmond. Even luckier, the slave labour gig wasn’t with Microsoft, but at the Redmond Ridge golf club a couple of miles to the northwest, just close enough to the outskirts of the greater city that after two days of gridlock and madness she was able to escape by stealing an electric golf cart at four in the morning and driving across the river at the 124th street bridge. From there it was only another two day’s hike up into the foothills to get back home. Although that’d been hairy as hell. Not just the trek, but not getting shot when she approached the barricades that would become the Seattle Gate.
To Lisa, this looks like the craziness down in the city when peeps started to realise that shit was legit fucked up. The shelves were empty at Walmart, and UberEats wasn’t coming to the rescue. She is desperately thankful that Tomi has included her in this escape plan, because she saw some shit on the way up here, and she would run a thousand miles never to have to see that sort of thing again. But unlike her friends, Lisa Dees has fam here in Silverton and she can’t just leave them behind. She says she can, of course. Because Tomi Yates can be a stone bitch when the situation demands, but Lisa is pretty sure that if they really have to get out, and she just turns up with her mom and her little brother, Adam, that in the rush of the moment, Tomi will be cool. Like that time Lisa brought Chrissy Ellus to Coral Smith’s house party even though Coral was like, strictly no try-hards. So Lisa nods and says she will totally keep Tomi’s plan secret, and they all agree to meet at the Cascade Gate if the church bells start ringing to signal the Wall or the other gate have been breached. But first chance she gets, Lisa is gonna tell her mom to pack a bag full of tinned food and get Adam into his summer camp gear and just be ready to go.
Adam Dees, twelve years old and a talented artist who can rip out a sketch of any of the major Marvel characters, except for Black Widow, who he finds hard to draw, sees his big sister with Tomi Yates and Trudy Smith and he wonders where they find the time to stand around talking shit when everyone else in town has jobs to do – but Adam also has a job to do and he ignores them to follow Lachie Saunders back to the county offices. Lachie is super cool, which is what you would expect of the town’s legally licensed cannabis grower, even though he’s not growing the good smoke anymore; now he’s all about salad vegetables and greenhouse design.
That’s where Adam comes in. Turns out he’s even better at drawing blueprints for Lachie’s green house project and Mister Joubert’s planting maps than he is at doing Ironman. There is no electricity for photocopiers, so every map for the planting teams has to be done by hand, and Mister Corney the head of the high school art department has personally recommended Adam for the job. How about that?
He did volunteer to draw up some bitching designs for much better defensive walls and gates than they had at the moment, but Mister Wetsman had said they’d have to make do with what they had. Adam’s unfailingly bright mood dimmed somewhat when he remembered the county clerk, who was dead now because the Hells Angels had murdered him, and maybe if someone had just listened to Adam about the need to build everything bigger and gnarlier, like his Helm’s Deep fortress design, Mister Wetsman would still be alive. He tries to forget about that, and about how scary it is that everyone is getting ready for the Hell’s Angels to come back tonight, and he hurries to catch up with Lachie, who’s fired up a big joint and is like just openly smoking it.
How cool is that?
Lachie Saunders has been waiting all day for a smoke, and since they are done with the first glasshouse and there is no chance work will resume until tomorrow, he feels he’s earned a quick toke. And hey, maybe there’ll be no tomorrow anyway. Not if those shitheads come back tonight like everyone is saying they will. He can’t hardly believe any of this shit is even real and for a moment he stares at the choice fatty he’s just lit up, wondering if he’s been betrayed by his own special blend.
But no.
There’s that Wolfenden guy, the militia captain, and he’s stalking up Main Street looking like all sorts of bad news and it’s a wonder to Lachie that they got guys like this walking around openly, toting fucking machine guns and shit and people are like totally cool with it.
Joe Wolfenden isn’t cool with anything of course. He hasn’t been cool since they had to leg it out of Seattle with half of their unit and most of their materiel stuck back in the city. He’s lost even more guys since then. Simon Hall took a bullet in a bullshit little skirmish on the second night in. No idea who got him. Just scavengers probing the edge of town. And then Vallon Davis went out on a long-range patrol and never came back. That shook Joe more than he cared to let on. Davis had a tour of the sandbox to his credit. He wasn’t some amateur and he knew how to keep himself safe. But the forest just swallowed him up all the same.
Wolfenden takes a long drag on a cigarette. A real cigarette, not one of that Saunders guy’s hand rolled specials. He laughs bitterly. Five years he’s been off the coffin nails and he starts smoking again at the very moment he can’t even buy a new pack. He’s a fucking idiot. He throws the butt away, angry with himself, but he can’t hold onto the self-loathing. Chances are they’ll all be dead before sunup tomorrow, anyway. He doesn’t doubt the bikers will come back in force. Maybe they’ll sack the town, maybe they’ll take it over for themselves. It’s a good defensible position if you got the personnel to defend it.
Which Silverton doesn’t.
He sighs as he reaches the Sheriff’s office.
He honestly cannot say whether he made the right choice staying in town.
Maybe he saved his men.
Maybe he doomed them.
Who can say?
Sheriff Muller is standing at the top of the steps waiting for Joe Wolfenden. He hitches up his pants. They are loose on him these days, what with all the work he’s been doing and the tight rations. So at least there’s that. Muller sketches out a tired smile for the militia captain, who looks even worse than he does. A good man, he thinks. They’re lucky to have him.
As Wolfenden climbs the stairs, his head hanging low, Muller takes a moment to survey the town.
It’s busy as the late afternoon slips toward twilight. It seems almost everyone is out preparing the defences or working the fields. Well, everyone except old Bob Shapcott over there, who’s taking a nap outside the pharmacy. Fair enough, though, at his age.
It’s noisy too, he thinks. Hammers and saws fashioning new pieces for the gates. The distant crunch of metal as Brad Rausch adds another car body to the Wall. Music from a speaker somewhere in the vegetable fields.
Batteries, Muller thinks idly. They’ll run out of batteries soon. They really shouldn’t be wasting them on music players.
But then he thinks about what’s coming and he knows they have bigger worries.
32
A change of mind
James O’Donnell had never experienced terror. Not true terror; the elemental, organic shock of a living soul suddenly confronted with its violent end. Like most people, he knew of the fluttering stomach or a sudden lurch of the heart in life’s small anxious moments. The big speech. The job interview. The dry mouth that made asking Laura-Marie Lawson to the Senior Prom such a choking humiliation.
But when Mel Baker’s cry pealed out of the seemingly empty RV to shatter the morning stillness in the quiet rest area, James felt the floor of the world drop away from beneath his feet, and a dizzying, head spinning rush of disorientation that robbed him for an instant of any idea of where he was or what had happened.
But it was Mel.
She was screaming.
James tripped on the two left feet that had somehow swollen to the size of giant novelty balloons, lost all feeling, and utterly betrayed him as he tried to run towards her.
He fell, landing heavily on the rifle, a painful shock running up one arm. Pins and needles in his fingers.
Mel was still crying out as he tried to regain his footing, but now she was yelling obscenities, or just one obscene word, over and over again— “Fuckfuckfuck”—and he could see her backing out of the RV, clumsily, but at speed. Her gun hand hung limp at her side. Her other hand was clamped over her mouth and she was shaking her head emphatically. No. No. No.
Hundreds of birds, disturbed by the uproar, took to the wing from the dark forest canopy, adding their shrieks and calls of alarm to hers.
James got his feet underneath him again, and jerked the rifle back and forth, looking for targets. He was no longer unsure of whether he could pull a trigger on another human being. It was all he could do to stop himself just blasting away at nothing.
Thankfully he did not. He probably would’ve shot Rick’s girlfriend, who was advancing on him, in a half-stumbling half-run, waving her hands at him, shaking her head.
“Don’t shoot,” she trilled out in a shaky voice.
And he did not, to both their relief.
James was shaking when Mel rejoined him and she was not much better. Violent shudders ran through her upper body and when she tried to speak she couldn’t. Instead she bent over to vomit, and having nothing in her stomach to bring up, she simply dry heaved and swore in a strangled, choking retch.
“What is it? What happened?” he asked. The birds had flown away on a storm of furiously flapping wings and the silence of a fallen world rolled back in over the rest area.
Mel shook her head emphatically, and for a second he thought she wasn’t going to tell him, but she held up her hands, squeezed her eyes tight shut, as though trying to force a terrible image from them, and shook her head again, this time as though in denial of some unspeakable truth.
And then Melissa Baker told James O’Donnell what she had found in the camper van.
