The Future War, page 7
“Not a problem, Mom. I know what you’re like when you’re working.”
Sarah looked puzzled. “What does that mean?”
Dieter laughed.
She glared at him indignantly. “What? What?”
Massachusetts
Snog, Brad, and Carl hunched down beside a Dumpster and checked the road that curved away before them. They’d left the others resting behind the high stone wall of an apparently empty house. They’d seen an occasional battered body lying in the road or on a sidewalk, but no one looking out a window or creeping through a backyard as they had been.
“I think they’ve been gassed, all these suburbs,” Brad said. “The animals we saw, you know, the dogs and cats, with the convulsions and vomit…”
“Shouldn’t it have gotten us, even down in the drainage tunnels?” Carl asked.
Brad shook his head. “Not if it dissipated before we got here. Remember, it took us hours to get this far. If these areas were gassed in the early morning, before the commuters were up and around, then this area would have been safe since about eight o’clock.”
Snog frowned, considering what Brad had said. “One thing bothers me about that, though.”
“What?” Carl asked.
“If this area was pacified by gas attack, I don’t see how it could have been done by Skynet. I just can’t see a bunch of bombers happening to be loaded with gas canisters, y’know. Not over the U.S. anyway. So who would have done it?”
“Pacified?” Carl muttered.
“Well,” Brad said, apparently figuring it out as he spoke, “I don’t know what the government had stored ready to turn over to the friggin’ computer. So it could have been canisters dropped from an airplane. But I think it’s unlikely. For one thing, we haven’t run across any empties.”
“Sooo, you’re suggesting that maybe, if there was a gas attack, that someone, like, hid them and then set them off by remote, or by a timer?” Carl asked.
Brad nodded. “It’s a possibility.”
Snog looked around the Dumpster, then back at his friends, frowning. “Unfortunately, that indicates a human element.”
Brad nodded.
“Well, who the fuck would want to do something like that?” Carl exploded. “You’d have to be crazy!”
“Some extremist group,” Snog said. “Those bastards are crazy. Apparently they aren’t technically crazy, they’re self-deluded, but that’s a distinction that only the shrinks care about. For our purposes, they’re loons.”
“Which loons, though?” Carl asked.
“Luddites,” Brad said, and nodded, as though agreeing with some inner voice.
Snog had always taken Brad’s silent conversations with himself for granted. But it occurred to him now that they were all a bit weird. Maybe it’s a bit arrogant for us to call anybody else a loon, but if Brad’s right, then hell, why not?
“I was reading this article in Time magazine about them,” Brad said. “Apparently they have an extreme fringe group that thinks humanity should be sterilized in order for the planet to survive.”
“That’s crazy all right,” Carl muttered.
“We could go and look in one of the houses,” Brad suggested; they all looked at one another, and the consensus was obvious without anyone speaking; they’d seen enough for a lifetime already this day.
Snog listened to the silence and in the far distance he thought he heard the sound of an ice cream truck making its rounds. It must be one of those coin-operated, automatic types that had come out last summer. It was early for an ice cream truck, only March. His stomach rumbled and a sudden desire for an orange Creamsicle hit him.
What am I thinking? he asked himself. Millions are dying and you want a Creamsicle? “Let’s go,” he said. There was a strip mall across the street that he wanted to check out.
They approached it from the back because there was more cover there. A man’s body lay against the wall, the middle of his body crushed down to about an inch, an uneaten ice cream cone melting on the pavement beside his left hand. Bits and pieces were—
Carl turned and heaved into the bushes. After a moment, Brad joined him. Snog moved away from them, determined not to give in to the urge to make it three.
He heard the merry tinkle of the ice cream truck coming closer and the sound made the hair on the back of his neck crawl erect with a prickling sensation. He went to the body and felt in the man’s pockets for keys, only to notice there was a bunch in the man’s right hand. That meant putting his hand into the pool of what had…leaked…from the body.
Grimly Snog wiped his hand clean on the lower part of the man’s pants. Then he grabbed the keys and started to try them on the door. The ice cream truck turned into the parking lot of the strip mall; he could hear the sound of its tires in spite of the loud, tinkly tune. His hands were shaking as he tried key after key.
What’s with this guy? Fifty keys?
“Shit!” Snog muttered softly. “Shit, shit, shit!”
The others came and crowded close to him, their eyes wide as they looked anxiously to the end of the row where the ice cream truck slowly approached. Gravel crunched.
Carl snatched the keys from Snog’s hand and without hesitation fitted one into the lock. They rushed inside and quietly closed the door behind them.
“How did you know which one to use?” Snog whispered.
Carl held up the key. It bore a label that said STORE.
Snog looked at Brad and the two of them broke up, laughing hysterically as Carl kept saying, “Shhhh! Shhhh!” He slapped Brad and both he and Snog gasped in shock and stared at him. Then they heard it. The truck’s tires made crunching sounds as it approached.
Carl’s lips formed the words, “The body.”
The truck sped up and from the sound scraped its length along the side of the building. A soft, wet sound interrupted the screeching of metal against stucco. Then the truck backed up, went forward, backed up, all the while playing its mindlessly merry tune. Snog broke for the front of the store and was sick to his stomach behind the counter. Pale-faced, Brad and Carl followed him, silently crouching down beside him.
“Shit!” Snog swore passionately, half in tears. “Shit!”
Brad patted his shoulder. They sat quietly until the ice cream truck went away. Then they sat for a while longer. Slowly Snog became aware of what he was looking at. Dangling from the ceiling and ranged along the walls was a colorful herd of mountain bikes. Farther into the store there was camping equipment, tents, blankets, cooking supplies, down jackets, the whole magilla.
“Paydirt,” he said softly.
The others looked at him and he gestured at the stock before them. It took a minute for his meaning to penetrate their shock, then, slowly, they both smiled.
Chapter 6
JOHN CONNOR’S INVITATION-ONLY
WEB SITE
This is it, folks, the nightmare we’ve all been waiting for. For those of you in more rural areas who may be unaware of what’s happening, at least I hope you are, I have some scary news. For the last several months Skynet has been experimenting with some vehicles built in automated plants that it controls. It’s been causing accidents all over the world, with, taken all together, a pretty grim death toll. Anyone who has a new vehicle is in danger; anything older than two years is probably fine unless you’ve upgraded it.
What’s happening right now, all over the world, is that these vehicles have gone rogue and are trapping people in cities, the better to kill them when the bombs fall. And those bombs are coming, soon. If you are in a city or town, leave now. Wake and warn your friends and relatives by all means, but run for it. You don’t have much time left. Head for the mountains or the wilderness.
Good luck.
John Connor.
Northeastern Iowa
Tom Preston sat back in his chair, stunned, as he stared at the screen. The rough plastered-stone walls of the old farmhouse suddenly seemed insubstantial, unreal. He was distantly conscious of the hammer of his heart, and the smell of his own sweat; the coffee in the cup he held in one hand shook like a tide-lashed sea, until he set it down with a clatter.
Peggy, he thought. His estranged wife, and Jason and Lisa, his kids. He had to get them to safety.
And Peggy won’t listen to me.
She’d put up with his survivalist doctrine for the first four years of their marriage. No, let’s be honest: she ignored it for the first four years of our marriage. She just liked testing herself against the wilderness—she thought the rest of it was a crock. Deep down, did I? I don’t now, that’s for sure.
You could lash yourself into a fit of terror over a menace, but you couldn’t convince your lower intestine unless you really believed.
He remembered when he carried her over the threshold of the ancient farmhouse: she’d been thrilled. Not once in the first year had she complained about hauling her own water, or chopping wood or the kitchen garden that took up a couple of acres, or the canning that went with it. She’d gloried in it. He’d been so proud of his new bride.
When Jason came along she was a bit nervous about going with a midwife, but everything had gone smoothly and later she’d thanked him for insisting. She gave birth to little Lisa under the same circumstances without a qualm, though having two kids in diapers made her less easygoing about all the water she had to haul. Then, when Jason turned six…
“Home schooling,” he’d said. “What else?”
“Not my kid.”
That had been the beginning of the end.
Actually, he’d really gotten into the survivalist movement very seriously about that time. Many a weekend he’d gone out, leading groups of like-minded men into the wilderness to train them how to survive. Leaving her alone with the kids. He’d forced her to learn to shoot, even though he could see she hated it. He took her hunting, but no matter what he said he couldn’t get her to shoot anything.
“What are you going to do if something happens to me?” he’d asked. “Let the kids go hungry?”
She’d just given him this look. He’d gotten her to teach a class in canning to some of his survivalist friends’ wives, thinking it would be a clever way to get some help for the annual canning. Unfortunately it turned out to be an incredible amount of work. When everyone had gone home and the mess had been cleaned up, Peggy, with rings of exhaustion around her eyes, had sat him down for “the talk.” Some of his buddies had warned him about “the talk.”
“You’re on your way out when the wife gets to that point,” one of them had said. “I’m not sure there’s anything that can be done to save the situation by then.”
There had been a world of bitterness in the man’s eyes when he’d said it. But Tom was secure, or so he thought, until the night after the canning debacle.
“Tom,” Peggy had said, tears running down her cheeks, “I still love you. But living like this is killing me. I can see myself getting older, I’m finding gray in my hair. Tom, I’m only twenty-seven. Look at me! Look at my hands!”
She’d held them out—they looked like his mother’s hands, work-roughened and knobby in the knuckles, stained with beet juice, the fingernails broken off short.
“And I want our children to have friends. I want them to go to school like we did.” She’d looked away from him, biting her lip. “I’m not a trained teacher. I’m so afraid that I’m shortchanging them. And for God’s sake, it’s not 1862! I want running water and a bathroom and a washing machine! I deserve to live in the twenty-first century just like everybody else, instead of in my own personal third-world country!”
He’d remembered his friend’s words and a cold chill ran down his spine. “What do you want to do?” he’d asked her.
“I want us to move into town, get jobs, and live like normal people.”
He’d shaken his head. He remembered how numb he’d felt. “Honey, that lifestyle you’re talking about isn’t going to last. It’s only a matter of time.”
She’d jumped up and loomed over him, looking fierce. “There is no collapse coming!” she’d shouted. “There’s no reason to think that one is! Now that everybody’s dismantling their bombs, we should be safe. And while you’re waiting for the worst to happen I’m working myself into an early grave! No more! Either you give this shit up right now and come to town with me or I’m going by myself! Now, which is it going to be?”
And I watched her drive away with the kids. I watched it, and it was like something died inside.
They’d moved into her parents’ house in town and he saw them once a week, and she let him take the kids every other weekend. They hadn’t gotten divorced yet, but he’d figured it was only a matter of time before some other guy came sniffing around.
Looked like that wasn’t going to happen now. Well, it’s nice there’s one bright spot shining on the end of the world, Tom thought. He picked up a handgun; his rifle was already in the old Land Rover. He knew that getting her to go with him was going to be a hard sell and he hoped it wouldn’t scare the kids too much. Her parents weren’t going to like it either.
Oh, well. So she’ll think I’ve gone postal for a while. At least she’ll have a chance. And the kids would be safe. He knew Peggy would do anything for Jason and Lisa. So would he.
Tom kept off the roads, going cross-country toward Larton, where his family waited, a village so small most maps didn’t have it. Well, that’s her idea of “moving into town,” he thought. Fucking Larton, secret metropolitan thought-control center of Corn-landia.
Once, when he came in sight of a road, he stopped and studied it through his binoculars. Cars sped past, clearly not under the control of their occupants. One man was beating futilely on the side window with his fist.
Tom’s mouth twisted. Must be panicked, he thought. All the man was going to do was break his hand. Even if he did smash the window, that car must have been going ninety; it wasn’t like he could jump. Being proved right is a lot less fun than I thought it would be. Shit, I wish I’d been just as barking mad as everyone thought.
Some women he saw were crying and holding on to one another. He supposed they were being transported to the nearest major target. His stomach knotted at the thought. Tom put down the glasses and started the Land Rover; there was no point in watching this. He had work to do.
Early as it was, he expected to find them all at home.
There were no cars visible on the road, so he hauled the Rover out of the drainage ditch and crossed the narrow strip of pavement to the dirt track that led to her parents’ old farmhouse. The farm itself was long gone, the fields left fallow; most of the land had returned to woods. This northeastern corner of Iowa was a long way from the popular stereotype of flat black earth—that was the way the rest of the state looked, legacy of the glaciers dumping ground-up rocks. Here the bones of the earth were visible, small winding valleys, forested uplands just showing the first faint mist of green along the branches, the odd patch of bottomland.
More like West Virginia than the Midwest, he thought.
To his relief, their cars were still in the yard in front of the old barn. He pulled up and walked onto the porch, the pistol a heavy weight in his pocket. The door opened before he could knock.
“We’re in the living room,” Peggy said. Then she turned and walked away, obviously expecting him to follow.
They were all gathered around the TV, the kids on the floor, Peggy’s mom and dad on the couch, looking concerned. Peggy’s mom, Margaret, looked up at him.
“Lord, Tom.” She reached out her hand to him. “You took a chance coming here today.”
He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I came cross-country. The Rover can go anywhere.”
His gaze turned to the television. The shots were from New York, obviously from the upper floors of an office building. Cars and trucks were roving the streets and sidewalks; you couldn’t even see the pavement. The reporter was saying that this was typical of cities all over the world.
“No one knows the cause of this phenomenon, and we can only hope that when these vehicles run out of fuel that the terror will stop.”
“If only,” Tom said. He turned to Peggy and her parents, aware that his children were watching and listening. “I’m afraid that the military did a very foolish thing.”
Larry, Peggy’s dad, interrupted him. “That Skynet thing,” he said. “Damnedest thing I ever heard of, putting everything under the control of a computer.”
“It’s also in control of all those cars and such that are running wild. I think the bombs’ll be dropping any minute now; we’ve got to get out of here.”
“Oh, no we’re not,” Peggy said.
“Peggy—” he started to say.
“I’m not going to be out in the open when the bombs drop; no, sir. We’ve got a good dry cellar down there and water from a well. We’ve even got a toilet in the cellar that Dad put in during the fifties. There’s tons of canned goods there and we’ve even got our own generator. You and Dad go shovel dirt over the cellar windows while Mom and I bring down bedding and anything else we might need.” She gave him a defiant look. He stared, feeling his jaw drop—he’d always thought that was a figure of speech.
“You know she’s right, son,” Larry said, looking amused. “Better to be here than in the open.”
“That’s assuming that it will happen,” Peggy warned. “We don’t know that it will. But if it does, then we’ll talk about moving on after the fallout stops…falling.”
Margaret stood up and smoothed her skirt. “Well, assuming that it does happen, we’d all better get to work. You, too, children. If you want anything you’re going to have to take it downstairs yourselves because we’ll be too busy. Understood?”
“Yes, Gramma,” the two kids said as one.
They were all leaving the living room, Tom in something of a daze, when the television made a strange sound. They turned to see that the newsman had been replaced by a woman standing before a sheet or something.
