All Fall Down: The Chronicles of Altor, page 7
Nyx narrowed her eyes at the small child. Where she had been raised, Nyx was already adept at handling basic weaponry by the time she was six. This girl in front of her looked to have been raised more on American Girl dolls or Breyer horses than pistols.
Still, Nyx knelt in front of her. With a serious expression, she said, “What do you have, Millie?”
Millie reached inside her pink winter coat and pulled a small knife out. It wasn’t a real knife. The blade was rubber, with a soft plastic handle. “Jay said I could use this if someone bothered us.”
Nyx took note of that. The man had been Jay, not Dad.
Nyx reached out, palm open. “I’ll hold it for you until you need it again.”
Solemnly, Millie nodded and handed the toy over.
Nyx looked up at the camera over the porch and the door swung open.
The three of them stepped inside and Nyx smelled meat cooking on the gas stove. That was like her mother. In times of crisis, she cooked.
Her mother was dressed like she always was, in a shapeless dress and wearing an apron. She stepped forward and reached a hand out to Rose. “I’m Shalva. That’s Franklin, and my daughter Adva. Upstairs in the loft is Chaya.” She looked at Millie. “If you want to go up, Chaya has some toys up there you can play with.”
Chaya peeked over the edge of the loft and waved.
Millie looked up at her mother, who nodded her approval, then stepped carefully up the hand-hewn ladder to the loft.
Almost immediately, the quiet hum of conversation could be heard between Chaya and Millie.
Nyx looked at Rose. “Children adapt quickly.”
“I don’t think she will ever forget what happened out there, though.”
“Likely not,” Nyx agreed.
“I made coffee,” Shalva said. “Would you like a cup?”
Rose looked like she might cry. “Coffee? I thought there might not be any coffee left in the entire country.” She nodded and Shalva hurried away.
“Cream?”
If the offer of coffee had seemed to surprise Rose, cream positively shocked her. “How?”
“We have Marigold in the back. She keeps us in milk, cream, and butter.”
Now tears did stream down Rose’s cheeks. “Please.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “It’s not the cream that’s making me cry, honest. It’s just that we didn’t think there was anywhere left like this.” She looked around at the tall ceiling, the spacious interior. “We were just hoping to find a place away from people where we could be dry through the winter. A cave, maybe, or a deserted hunting cabin.” She laughed a little at how naïve that seemed now.
Adva poured coffee into a thick mug, then added some cream from a stainless steel container. “I’d offer sugar, but we ration that very carefully.”
“No need,” Rose said, taking the cup in both hands and taking her first sip. She closed her eyes and nodded to herself. “Never thought I’d taste that again.”
“Are you saying that the three of you just set off with no destination in mind? You left civilization behind to live in these mountains?”
“We were getting one last camping trip in. We’d heard that there were weird things going on with rich people getting killed before we left but we figured that would all be over by the time we got back. You know, how something is big news for a while—a missing airplane, or a kidnapping, or some woman goes missing—then a few days later you just don’t hear about it anymore. One day it’s the Rage Wars, the next day it’s some storm in the Philippines. It’s always gotta be something. We figured it would be like that.”
Rose looked around the room to see if anyone else had anything to say. When no one did, she continued on.
“We always take our little radio with us when we camp. It’s one of those that you can wind up, then it will play for a couple of hours?”
Rose had the habit of turning sentences that were statements into questions by raising her voice at the end.
“We were just getting ready to hike back out to our van when we heard the news stories about nuclear bombs going off all over the country. We figured we’d tuned in to some hoax broadcast. You know, like that War of the Worlds thing? Jay said this one was really well done and now he could see how people fell for this sort of thing. Except this time it was real. A few hours later, the radio didn’t work. Not because our radio didn’t work, but because all the radio stations weren’t broadcasting anymore. We decided to stay out another night and see how this all played out.”
Rose’s coffee had cooled sufficiently for her to take a deep swallow of it.
“Oh thank you. I can’t tell you how good that is. Anyway, when the stations didn’t come back on the air, we figured we better hike back to the van and drive somewhere. Except when we got back to the van, some people had broken into it and were already living in it. Like it was theirs!”
Rose’s indignation at that was still obvious.
“I mean it’s just our old van. We never thought anyone would want it. But they had broken the window and then put one of our tarps up over it. I guess they were sleeping in there?”
She stopped for a long time and Nyx began to think perhaps that was all the story she was going to tell.
Rose tapped her fingers nervously against her leg and said, “I don’t suppose you have any cigarettes?”
“No,” Nyx said.
“Well, this is one way to kick the habit, I guess. I had my last one yesterday. Cold turkey is tough, though.”
She nodded her head as if having a conversation with herself for a few moments.
“Jay always carried that pistol with him when we went camping. Sometimes he would shoot at beer bottles we found, that sort of thing. We hid in the bushes and were watching the people inside our van. One of them came out to take a leak and saw us, though. He climbed back inside yelling that they were under attack. He grabbed a rifle and pointed it at us.”
She drained the last of the coffee and handed the cup back to Adva.
“Jay shot him. I ran forward and grabbed the rifle. Jay said that was foolish on my part because if they’d had other guns, they would have killed me. They didn’t, though. They didn’t have any other guns. There were two women left. We didn’t shoot them, but we made them walk up the road away from us. We decided to go home, but they’d run our battery dead. There wasn’t anyone around to give us a jump, so we just stayed there in the van for a few days. No one ever came along, and we figured it was probably better if they didn’t. We had all our camping stuff with us, so we just started hiking.”
“What road was your van parked on?”
Rose looked blankly up at the ceiling for a moment. “I don’t remember. An old Forest Service Road.” Then, like lightning, it jumped into her mind. “Forest Service Road 1567! Wow, I can’t believe I remembered that.”
“Stress can sharpen us sometimes.”
Nyx went to a cupboard and took out a cardboard cylinder about three feet long. She pulled a roll of heavy paper out of it, rolled it backwards, then laid it on the table. She traced her finger along it, then pointed at a dotted blue line.
“There. 1567.” She moved her hand up and to the right three, four, then five inches. “That means you walked fifty miles to get here.”
Rose nodded. “I guess so. We weren’t keeping track. Jay was a good shot with the rifle we got, and I’m good with my fishing pole. I have one of those little retractable poles that I carry in my pack? Yeah. We managed to keep us mostly fed, but we were getting worried about how cold it was. Jay said we should think about turning around, but then he’d say, but there might not be anything left back there.”
“He was right. There’s not much left out there.”
Rose had done her best to keep her composure since her tears at the offer of coffee. She still did, but her chin danced a little as if she was fighting a battle with herself.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“That’s the situation with everyone these days. There aren’t many people who planned for something like this,” Nyx said.
Rose looked around at the tall ceiling, the warm fire in the stove, the well-stocked shelves. “You did.”
“In a way,” Nyx agreed.
Rose repeated herself. “I don’t know what to do.”
Over her head, Shalva looked a question at Nyx, who gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Shalva put her arms around Rose.
“You’ll stay here with us.”
Chapter Ten
Inside Prison Walls
James “Rolls” Royce stood on the lip of the guard tower, watching the horizon. Someone had been on guard in that tower around the clock since the day of the kangaroo court and the executions. They ran six four-hour shifts in each of the two towers, so that meant twelve of the people who remained in the prison were on guard duty every day.
Rolls couldn’t help but reflect on the unlikely series of events that had led him from being a prisoner walking the yard to a lookout standing guard.
When Harry had decided that Rolls was worthy of living, he had said he was going to put him outside. Rolls did not argue with that judgment. Being put out was far superior to a bullet in the forehead.
When Heyo had led him outside the cell block, though, he hadn’t taken him outside. Instead, he had gestured to him to be quiet and follow him. He led him down a series of hallways to the lunch room where all the other permanent residents of Longbaugh had gathered, trying their best not to imagine what was going on in the other part of the prison.
What Harry had said about not being able to hear the prisoners scream was not strictly true. The thick stone walls did do a lot to suppress sound, but the gunshots from the cell block echoed through the whole prison. In one corner of the room, an ancient turntable that had once been used to play marches by a particular law and order warden was now playing one of the few albums available.
It wasn’t anything that anyone in the room had ever had on a streaming playlist. It was Day-O, The Best of Harry Belafonte. It was anyone’s guess how that particular album had ended up stored with the turntable, but it was there. The happy, upbeat calypso music had at least partially drowned out the horrors everyone knew were occurring elsewhere.
Heyo had put a hand on Rolls’ shoulder and introduced him to the group. “This is Jimmy Royce, but everyone calls him Rolls. Not just because his last name is Royce, but because he was a car thief.” He grabbed Rolls’ neck in a firm grip and gave him a little shake. “You ever steal a Rolls Royce?”
From anyone else, that gesture would be an attempt at intimidation. From Heyo, it was just a part of his oversized personality.
“No sir,” Rolls answered. “Way too conspicuous. I took Honda Civics and Ford F-150s. There’s a million of those out there.”
If the other guards and their families resented having a criminal among them, no one showed it.
Harry, Jack, and Heyo had taken a terrible responsibility on themselves and everyone wanted to give them a tremendous amount of leeway for it.
“I’ve got to get back,” Heyo said. “I’m not going to introduce everybody, but you’ll get to know them soon enough.” He laid a meaty arm around the small shoulders of Rolls and looked at everyone else gathered around the tables. “Rolls is a good person.” It was a simple statement and good enough for everyone gathered there.
And just like that, Rolls was on the inside. As in, in the family. Almost immediately, he was just another one of the people working every day, trying to ensure their survival.
And that led him to be up in the guard tower, looking toward Longbaugh itself.
Harry had warned everyone that eventually, people would show up, no doubt wanting to be let inside. There were standing orders to call him when that happened.
Rolls happened to be the one on duty when the first person from Longbaugh city paid a visit to Longbaugh prison.
Rolls had a rifle but had no intention of using it. Even if they fired at him, he would just retreat behind the bulletproof glass of the tower and wait for Harry to show up.
It was December, and there was a bitter chill. Rolls wore a heavy Carhartt jacket with several layers underneath. Inside the tower, it was cold. Standing out in the wind, it was worse.
Snowflakes spun and danced in the air, but the first actual snowfall hadn’t happened yet.
There were six people in the vehicle that approached. It amused Rolls a little that it was an older model Ford F-150. Based on the body style, it was probably a 2023 or 2024.
The truck rolled right up to the gate and honked their horn. When nothing happened, the driver leaned on the horn for a good fifteen seconds, as though that might cause the reinforced steel gate to swing open.
Rolls waited patiently in the guard tower.
Finally, the driver put the truck in gear and climbed out. That was when he finally looked up in the tower and saw Rolls.
“Hey! I need you to open the gate. I want to come in and talk to Harry.”
“No can do.”
The tower was forty feet in the air, so there was a bit of distance between the two men.
The driver of the truck shook his head and walked until he was directly under the guard tower. “Listen, I don’t want to get you in trouble, but I’m a friend of Harry’s.” The man squinted up at Rolls. “Do I know you?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
The man took a step back. Rolls could tell the man was trying to think because he was sure he could smell the smoke.
“You’re not one of the prisoners, are you? I think I know all the guards. What’s going on here?”
Rolls shrugged. He didn’t really think of himself as one of the prisoners anymore. He felt like a parolee who had just decided to stay on. He heard footsteps coming up the circular staircase and raised his hand at the man on the outside.
“Hang on. I think someone’s coming to talk with you.”
Harry emerged from the staircase, out of breath. “Too damned many stairs to get up here,” he muttered.
“Who’s down there blowing their damned horn?”
“I don’t know, but he says he knows you.”
“Probably does then,” Harry said with a sigh. He walked to the edge of the tower and looked down. “Oh, hey Frank. What’s up?”
“What’s up? What’s up? Are you—are you kidding me? Come on, Harry, open up the gate and let us in. It’s just me and the boys.”
“Not gonna do it, Frank.”
“What?” Frank said, his voice rising. “Now I know you’re kidding. That’s state of Montana property. I am a duly appointed official of the State, and I demand that you open this gate.”
“You’re a notary, Frank.”
“Don’t denigrate my profession, Harry. Just open the damned gate.”
“We’ve already had this part of the conversation. Is there anything else?”
Below, Frank turned three different shades of red. He sputtered and looked for his words but seemed to have a hard time finding them.
“You need to calm down or you’re gonna give yourself a heart attack, Frank.”
Frank bent forward at the waist and took a series of deep breaths. When he looked up again, he seemed to be a different person.
“Look, Harry. You don’t know what it’s like out here. It’s worse than anything you can imagine. Longbaugh is like a shooting gallery. People keep attacking us. In our own town! We’re already mostly out of food, and winter’s just starting! The mayor’s been killed. The last band of idiots that came through grabbed him and dragged him into the middle of Main Street and shot him.”
“What happened to them?”
“About a hundred guys opened fire on them. There wasn’t enough of them left to bury, thank God. They should know better than to come into a town like ours and do somethin’ like that.”
Frank seemed to have taken some pride in that and Harry thought that Frank had likely been one of the hundred guys who fired on the men. Harry was in no position to judge.
“Sorry, Frank, but the prison’s closed. No one’s coming in or out.”
“But you guys have it made in there.” A canny look crossed Frank’s face. “Especially now that you’re not having to feed all those prisoners. Thanks a lot for setting them loose on the town.”
Harry shrugged. “Tough times. Tough measures.”
“We didn’t have enough to care for our own. Any of those who were dumb enough to come into town looking for a handout didn’t like the reception they got.” Frank squinted up at Harry. “There wasn’t that many of them, though. You didn’t let them all out, did you?”
“Anything else I can help you with, Frank?”
“Those that didn’t make it out didn’t end up in the stewpot, did they?”
Harry reached down and grabbed his belly, which was still substantial. “Do I look hungry enough to do that?”
“Bastard,” Frank said. “What if I just ram my Ford into that gate and knock it off its hinges, then take what I want?”
Harry sighed. “You’re welcome to try. All you’re gonna do is fold the front end of your vehicle up like an accordion, though. Remember how long ago they built this place. Things were built to last back then. But, do your damndest. Better tell those boys you brought with you to buckle up, though, or they’ll go through the windshield.”
Whatever façade of civilization Frank had been holding onto slipped away. He let loose a stream of invectives, then went for the pistol on his belt.
Harry had been anticipating that and took one step back behind the bulletproof glass.
Frank didn’t jerk off a quick shot, but instead took careful aim. The bullet pinged off the glass in front of Harry, leaving a crack but nothing more.
Harry turned to Rolls. “Stay inside, but try and keep an eye on them. Let me know if anything else happens.”
“You don’t think they’ll come over the wall, do you?”
“Hungry people do crazy things, so they might. The razor wire on top will slow them down pretty good, though. I’ll put an extra patrol on each section of the wall. If they come over the top, they won’t like what they find. If you see any of them, shoot them.”
