Fail State, page 4
part #2 of End of Days Series
“NATO members voted overnight to mobilise forces as Russia menaced the borders of Poland and the Baltic states,” the newsreader said, “but no word yet on whether US forces will be factored into any response.”
Michelle started to say something, but then shushed herself as a report on a third day of food shortages and rationing in dozens of American cities came on.
“That be fucking right,” she muttered. Then—“Hey quiet, I need to hear this”—causing James to smile. He gave the radio a touch more volume as they emerged from a long passage through deep woodland. A small farm lay to the left of the highway, and the Sierra’s wheels hummed over a low concrete bridge that spanned the Cheat River. He caught a glimpse of people fishing in the shallow rapids.
“Shelves remain empty in most urban areas and even many smaller towns, and rationing is in force, as authorities struggle to cope with a massive cyber-attack on key food distribution companies around the nation.”
The Secretary of Defense was back, calling out the cyber-strikes of the previous three days as diversionary attacks designed to distract the Administration and sap the will of the American people.
Michelle spoke up in a cartoonishly deep voice, presumably meant to imitate the Sec Def, “But we will not be sapped or distractivated…” she said, as the man himself said something just as nonsensical on the radio. She insisted on quiet again, even though she was the only one talking, when the reporter mentioned Homeland Security’s ‘urban stronghold program’, but before they could learn anything of it, James slammed on the brakes and the tires bit into the tarmac with a screech and the unmistakable odour of burning rubber.
A pine tree lay across the road, but it had not come down in a storm.
Somebody had cut through the thick base with chainsaws and the dragged the massive fallen log across the road with chains.
Men stood behind it. None of them in uniform but all of them armed.
Rick was already reaching for his weapon when one of the men fired a single blast from a shot gun into the air.
James threw the car into reverse, performing a tight bootleggers’ turn, throwing everyone over, hard. Nomi yelped. Mel swore loudly. Michelle cried out in alarm.
Only Rick was quiet. He had braced himself with one hand and was swivelling to track the shooter as they spun around. But no further gunshots sounded as James stomped the accelerator, sending them back where they had come from. At high speed.
“So,” he said raggedly when they were a safe distance away. “I guess Route 24 is closed now.”
Route 24 never did open again, as far as James O’Donnell knew.
5
The three river reach
They were safe. They were secure. They were fucked.
Damien Maloney studied the map in the galley of Lasseter’s Reef, scowling at the light blue filigree of riverine trace work running west and north of their current position, moored somewhere near the centre of Franks Tract.
The Tract was a state park, 3000 acres of flooded land in the Sacramento-Joaquin River Delta. The only way to get in here was by boat, hence the safety and security. The only way out was by boat. Explaining why they were fucked.
Damo traced one thick finger up the straight blue line of the Sacramento River shipping channel, forty-three miles from the Liberty Cut to the inland port of Sacramento. Thirty feet deep and two hundred wide, it was more than big enough to offer passage to Lasseter’s Reef and he had intended just that when they set out from the yacht club back in San Francisco. Nine days earlier.
Damo's scowl deepened. If only they’d made the run that first night. They’d probably be in Canada by now, getting fat on poutine and maple syrup. Instead they were stuck here in the arse end of the world, pulling their puds while they waited on… Well to be perfectly fucking crude about it – the end of the fucking world.
He put down the thick enamel mug of instant coffee he'd been drinking, and leaned over the maps again. He wasn’t familiar with any of these watercourses. Lasseter's Reef was a big ocean-going yacht, not well suited to manoeuvring in the confined narrows and shallows of the Delta. The tips of his fingers, blunt and powerful from years in the mining industry, drifted over the alternative routes. A cursory glance at the charts suggested they had at least half a dozen options. But they didn't. He knew that not all of those rivers and streams were navigable, not by a fucking aircraft carrier like the Reef, anyway.
And his ‘charts’ were exactly as much use as a pair of fake tits on a prize bull.
Damo had a full suite of navigational maps for the Bay Area and the coast north and south for hundreds of miles. He had even more stowed away for the Great Barrier Reef back home. And the Caribbean. And the Maldives, the first place he’d taken the Reef and half-a-dozen mates on a surfing and drinking safari when he’d cashed out of the mining business five years ago. For the hinterland waterways of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, however, he had to rely on a National Geographic road map. It had nothing to offer a pilot attempting to navigate the flooded lowlands of Franks Tract.
“Who calls a fucking lake a tract anyway,” he grumbled to himself. “It’s so fucking misleading as to constitute professional fucking malfeasance.”
“Damo. Baby ducks on the pond, buddy.”
He looked up from the table to find Karl Valentine frowning at him. And young Maxi Sarjanen grinning up a storm.
“Ah shit, sorry Maxi. Don’t tell your mum.”
“Fuckin’ oath not, mate,” the young boy beamed in the broad, flat Australian accent he’d been practicing for a week now. His eyes were alight with mischief — at least until Valentine clipped him lightly across the back of the head.
“You ain’t old enough to talk like that, and if your mom ever hears you, take my word for it you will never be old enough.”
“Ow!” Maxi said, rubbing the spot just behind his ear.
Karl shooed him out of the galley, carrying two bottles of water for Jodi and Ellie, who had the watch up on deck.
“Much happening out there,” Damo asked.
He meant on the lake. Not up on deck.
“A new boat came in about half an hour ago," Karl said. He gestured at the beer fridge, "You mind?"
"Only if you don't get me one, too," Damo replied. It was hot below decks. He'd stopped running the air-conditioning when he realised they couldn't get up the shipping channel, couldn't get through the port of Sacramento, couldn't do much of anything other than sitting on their arses out here in the middle of the Tract. They had to preserve fuel now, and food. But it was hot, and a beer wouldn't hurt anybody. It might even shake loose an idea about getting out of here.
Karl fetched a couple of imported ales from the small glass fronted cooler. Stone and Wood, all the way from home. Damo knocked the top off his, took a long pull, burped and sighed.
"Let's go up. I'm not doing any good down here," he admitted.
He led the way out of the galley and up the short stairwell onto the deck. The sun was high overhead, fierce and bright, forcing him to squint until he pulled a pair of Ray Bans from his shirt pocket and slipped them on. The quiet, unsettling wetlands of the Tract revealed themselves. Gently rolling hills, lightly forested here and there, boggy marsh and flooded valleys, reedbeds swaying and rustling in the breeze which rippled the surface of the water, throwing off brilliant bursts of reflected sunlight. And boats. Dozens of them, of all kinds. Only a couple of big cruisers like the Reef, but all manner of yachts, runabouts and fishing skiffs too. All of them carefully spaced away from each other. Everybody keeping their distance.
"Ladies," Demo said, raising his beer to Ellie and Jodes. They were dressed for the heat in cut-off jeans and sleeveless T-shirts. Ellie Jabbarah, his former sous chef, did not lower the binoculars from her eyes. She was scoping out the only vessel that was moving across the surface of the lake. Damo followed the direction of her gaze, and found the moving target, a twin engined deck boat. White-hulled, navy blue trim. Looked like maybe four or five people on deck. Damo's eyes had been going bad for years and he couldn’t make out detail that fine.
Nobody said anything as long as the boat was moving. The lake had reached a sort of nervous equilibrium a couple of days ago when the last boat from San Francisco had sailed into the Three River Reach. Literally sailed, too. That had been a single-masted racing yacht that passed through the gently bobbing armada before continuing silently north. Since then, nothing.
This latest arrival took anchorage near the northernmost point of Mandeville Island, almost as though they intended to block the channel. Not much point in that, Damo thought. Everything was blocked up at Sacramento anyway.
Still, he breathed a little easier when the anchor splashed down into the cool waters of the lake and Ellie lowered the binoculars.
“Four men on deck," she said. "Sidearms and a couple of shotguns. But fishing poles too."
Demo gestured for the spy glasses and she handed them over. He scanned the new arrivals, nodding. They looked like they were setting up to catch some lunch. They were armed as Ellie had said. But so was he. So was everyone.
"Maxi, you think you could keep an eye on these blokes?" Damo said. "While I talk to your mums and Karl. You can use the binoculars. Just let us know if they do anything besides fishing."
The young boy's eyes went wide with the thrill of grown-up responsibility.
"You be careful with those now, Max," Jody, his mother said. Ellie had come onto the scene a couple of years after Jodie had split from Chad, the boy’s biological father. The sperm donor, as Ellie referred to him. But never within Max's hearing. Damo got the lad set up on one of the rear facing seats from which he had enjoyed fishing in happier times, when it hadn't meant the difference between eating and going hungry. The adults moved in under the canvas of the wheelhouse, where they could keep an eye on Max but converse without being overheard.
"What's up, Damo?” Jody Sarjanen asked. It was an innocent question, but Damo had to check himself before he replied sarcastically. The heat, his frustration, the lack of control, it was all getting to him.
He folded his thick, meaty arms. They looked like a couple of well cured ham hocks sitting over the top of his beer belly. He let his chin sink down onto his chest.
"We can't stay here much longer," he said. "We've got plenty of food in the tucker box, and enough fuel to keep the freezer running for months. But we were just lucky. "
He gestured at the small flotilla around them.
"Some of these people are probably living on what they pull out of the lake. Increasingly, everyone will. And that's a finite resource. It's not sustainable.”
“You got a plan?" Ellie said. She loved a plan, but she could also improvise under pressure. It made her a great chef.
"Still working on it," he smiled, without much humour. "We can't head back through the Bay. Well, we could, but that's a shit idea. Even if we got through and out into open water, we don't have enough range to get anywhere safe."
Karl Valentine made a face.
"Don't know that anywhere is safe right now,” he said.
"Fair cop,” Damo nodded. "I think our best bet is still north. My farm. But we gotta get through Sacramento, and I don't know how far north the river is navigable after that. I figured we could get a car or something. But that was a fucking long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”
“And a lot less fucked up than this one,” Ellie said drily.
“Too fucking right,” Damo agreed. “Once we get off the boat, we’re in the same hole as everybody else. We got food. But no transport. And it's a fucking long and dreary walk to Canada."
“And when you get there, you’re in Canada,” Ellie grinned. She leaned over and kissed Jodi on top of the head.
The deck moved gently underfoot in the breeze. It was quiet enough that they could hear occasional sounds from the other boats, even though the closest was over a hundred yards away. The quiet, in fact, was eerie. No planes overhead. No traffic. No music or talk radio or electronic chatter of any kind.
“You could try Sacramento again” Ellie said. “They can only tell us to fuck off.”
Damo wasn’t convinced.
“Mate,” he said. “They blocked everything when the Feds declared it a stronghold city. I don’t see why that would’ve changed. They’re not letting anyone in.”
“Can’t hurt to ask, Damo,” she pushed back. “A trip up river might be nice. We could do a spot of shopping in town, baby,” she smiled at Jodi. “Get one of those martinis you like at the Shady Lady Saloon.”
“We don’t want to go into the city,” Jodi said. “We just want to go through.”
“And maybe they’d be cool with that,” Damo said. “Or maybe they’d seize the Reef, grab our stores, and throw our arses back in the river. We just dunno, Jodes.”
They had been able to monitor the emergency until about three days earlier, when the last of the terrestrial radio stations fell silent. No idea why. Maybe the power ran out. Maybe it was another round of cyber-attacks. Maybe…
Damo shook his head, annoyed with himself.
Speculating was bullshit. What they did know was this: San Francisco was under martial law. The army and police had been authorised to use lethal force to maintain a curfew. But the curfew wasn't holding. Or it hadn't been, the last they knew. As Ellie had predicted, the attack on the country's food distribution infrastructure on the first day of the war wasn’t just a crippling blow; it was a killer. San Francisco couldn’t feed itself for more than three days, and it was not alone in that.
"Emergency broadcast system is still on air," Karl offered. "I could monitor that for the rest of the day. See if it says anything useful."
Ellie snorted. “That’d be a first.”
“Mister Maloney!” Max called out “They’re coming.”
All of the adults turned in his direction. He was pointing out across the water.
The newly arrived motorboat was driving directly at them.
6
It was like Sharknado season
There was only so much they could fit into her dad’s trusty Oldsmobile Alero. When Tammy got her ass home from that final shift at the Dollar General, she hurried into the house and kicked everyone off of the TV. They were all glued to it; Roxarne her roomie and the four kids, but they weren’t keeping up with the Kardashians like usual.
Rox looked at her with big frightened eyes.
“Tammy, News 9 says there’s a war with China and riots all over the place. People fighting each other for food and gas.”
“Uhuh,” Tammy confirmed. “Saw it myself at work. People have gone crazy, Rox. Like it’s the Walking Dead or something.”
The kids all turned and stared at Tammy, mouths open.
“Are zombies coming?” Bobby Jr. asked.
Tammy rolled her eyes.
Bobby Jr. was all hers since Bobby Sr. left for the fracking, but the boy could still be as powerfully foolish as his dad at times.
“No. That ain’t for real, Bobby. But something has gone bad for sure. There was an honest to god damn riot at the Dollar General this morning. Over government cheese and hamburger helper if you can believe that! One guy even shot a hole in the ceiling.”
“Damn,” Roxy said. “What’d Gutterson do? Shit his pants?”
That set off howls of laughter from the children.
Tammy shook her head. “Wouldn’t know from shit about him. He took off too. Left me and Wynette to run the whole store with all this other stuff going on. Didn’t say a damn thing before he left.”
She stopped, her jaw dropping open.
“Goddamn! I’ll bet he cleaned out the safe.”
She was genuinely astounded, first by the realisation, and then by the fact that she hadn’t thought to do it herself.
When things went to pieces, it was usually Tammy who called balls and strikes. She muted the television, which was just a bunch of politicians anyway, and said, “Okay, team. Listen up. I ain’t sure what’s happening, but it’s big and it’s everywhere. So, we’re gonna get the hell gone from here for somewhere safer.”
“But why?” Roxarne asked. She wasn’t snarking. She just wanted to know.
The four children were all charging around now, not getting any of their shit together in any which way at all.
“Roxy, folks was already beating on each other for the last box of Mac-n-Cheese. And it really was the last one too. Wholesalers told us this morning they couldn’t deliver for at least three weeks. Not just the Mac-n-Cheese. Nothing. Folks was panic buying like it was fucking Sharknado season. I’m telling you, we got to get gone.”
Roxarne frowned.
“But Tammy, this is Dillonvale. Nothing happens here. Ever. If shit is happening everywhere else ain’t we better staying where it ain’t?”
On the TV a Kroger’s burned somewhere. The news ticker underneath was saying crazy things about China and Russia and Tammy read it for a few seconds without much thought of anything beyond the certainty of a stray cat that it best get the hell out of the dog pound. She clapped her hands together, hard. It sounded like a whip-crack. Everyone jumped.
“You kids! Everyone start packing for a big sleepover, and only bring the shit that matters. Shoes, undies. Medicines if you got ‘em. Move! Now!”
The kids all cheered and ran for their room. They all shared one together. And they did love a sleepover, or a camp out, even if only meant sleeping on the floor watching cartoons at a friend’s house while their moms pulled late shifts.
As soon as she had chased them out, Tammy took Roxarne by the arm and lead her to the front stoop, where they could not be overheard.
“Roxy, I have to go. I…”
