Altered America (19 page)

             
Joseph and the others had disappeared a month before the official hand-over. They had thrown away their past lives and were now insurgent leaders. None of them carried out anything as important as the attack on the governor, but they all carried out smaller strikes, and there was enough support among the populace for them to hide with ease. 

             
The insurgency would cause a scandal in the USA as the National Party would sweep Congress as well as several states in the midterm. Where the Liberty Party did succeed they were met with stern resistance to secession. It was a small consolation to the rebels in Maryland, or the residents of the District of Columbia who were now under a blockade and only being alleviated by Union dirigibles. While it meant that other states would not repeat Maryland’s mistake, it did not appear that any help was forthcoming to rectify the situation.

             
News of the outside world lost all its appeal for Joseph Dalton; it became gossip used to stave off boredom instead of anything of substance. The insurgency had swallowed his life, and the lives of his comrades.  The only thing that existed was their grim fight for freedom.

* * *

              Joseph Dalton was awoken on a foggy morning a year after he took to fighting, as the doors of the barn were busted open and a stream of greyshirts came in. He was pinned to the ground, a sack forced over his head and his hands cuffed. Resistance was useless as he was forced into the back of a van. After a while, the van stopped and Joseph was escorted from the van to a small room, at which point the sack was removed from his head.

             
The room was a barren, concrete holding cell—there was no way of telling what it had been before. Joseph was not the only one in the cell, Jimmy and Cassius were also there, leaning against the wall, looking at him.

             
“They got you as well, huh?” Jimmy asked.

             
“Yeah, they rushed me this morning before I even knew what was happening. What about you two?”

             
“Raid on a plantation went bad,” Cassius replied.

             
“Rat in my resistance cell,” Jimmy answered.  “Killed him before they took me in. Danny died in a raid about three months back.”

             
No one was really in a talking mood and a silence fell over the room. Confederate guards would appear from time to time take one of them to be interrogated or to give them food.

             
The next day a trial was held, more for show than for anything substantive. The three of them, along with other insurgent leaders that they did not know, were sentenced to death by firing squad.

             
The execution was slated for the next morning. In the early morning light they were marched out of their holding cells into the courtyard. Cassius was the first one who spoke, as he started singing “The Battlecry of Freedom,” which was quickly taken up by the other insurgents. The commander and firing squad were clearly bothered by it. Regardless, they played their parts and executed each of them in turn.

             
Joseph was the last to be executed. He felt the bullet pierce his heart and he began to lose consciousness. Yet, before he drifted away he heard explosions and the crack of continued fire. A smile appeared as he crumpled to the ground, knowing the struggle would continue without him.

Goodbye, Norma Jean

by William R. D. Wood

             
A fresh fissure ran down the tunnel's arched ceiling.

             
Marilyn didn't care.

             
The click of her heels on the concrete floor echoed down the cave-like stretch. Dim yellow light shown down from bare bulbs hanging every few yards, all from a single conduit centered roughly overhead. Hanging low enough, she could feel the heat from the bulbs as she passed.

             
Fallen grit shifted underfoot and she stumbled, dropping the small box of cans and bottles she carried. Two of the four bottles broke, dousing the army green cans with half her ration of water.

             
It didn't matter anyway. She'd been ill for days now. All four of them had. The senator said they must be coming down with a bug—something one of them had brought down into the bunker the day they'd arrived. She didn't like the arrogant blow hard, but he was probably right.

             
A puddle formed in a dip in the floor near her foot. The others would have a fit if they found out she dropped the bottles—wasted the water. She'd just tell them she drank them. They were her rations, anyway. Whose business was it if she drank
her
water early? It would be her loss until the senator deigned to open another of the sealed supply crates that lined every wall in bunker proper. And who the hell had filled those lockers anyway? No booze in a single one so far.

             
At least that's what the senator had said each and every time she'd asked him. That was his story and he was sticking to it. She'd even asked to open the remaining lockers—to do an inventory was all—but the senator had refused. Why he got to keep the key, she didn't know, but, truth was, those lockers wouldn't last forever and a swig or two would do them all a world of good—even Jackie and the senator's rich kid aide.

             
Marilyn stepped over a fallen chunk of concrete and eased herself to the floor, her dress hiking up to mid-thigh.

             
Modesty.
Why bother now
, she thought, tears welling in her eyes.
Was Jack even still coming?

             
In the bunker there was no day or night. A clock in the main hall told the time, but there was no calendar. Had it only been six weeks like the senator said, or had it been longer?

             
She wasn't sure anymore.

             
At least she and Jackie had buried the hatchet, until a few minutes ago, anyway. The First Lady—out of nowhere and without provocation—had stood up from her corner of the main hall, marched over to Marilyn, and informed her in no uncertain terms that when her husband arrived—and he would any day now—she was going to be out on her trollop ear.

             
Trollop?
Who even talks like that?

             
But she knew the answer to that. Rich bitch, politician's wives. And who was mightier than the wife of the leader of the Free World?

             
Even so, the nerve!

             
Marilyn hadn't meant to take Jackie's husband away. She really hadn't. A few too many drinks hadn't helped that night at his birthday party, but he had been the one to make the first move. And when the President of the United States wants some of what you have, you give it to him, right? Not that they hadn’t found each other's company before then...

             
Of course, she should never have sung to him
that
way. She got up to the microphone, though, with all the memories of the two of them together, and she just couldn't help herself.

             
Everyone who didn't already know they were seeing one another behind the First Lady's back certainly did after
that
display.

             
Marilyn wiped at her eyes and pulled at the hem of her dress to no avail. She'd worn the white number from the night of the party for days after they'd come to the bunker, thinking he'd come for her right away after the bombs fell. That had been foolish, hadn't it? Now it was ruined. Stained and frayed from countless snags in this abominable bunker. The scrap between her and Jackie the second week—or was it the third, she wasn't sure—had torn the neckline so low she really didn't have a choice. It was change into this old thing or give the senator and his lackey a free show. Despite what they and the rest of America might think of her, the shows were not free.

             
Jack knew that.

             
And that's why he'd come for her. He might have left Jackie, the senator, and his pimply-faced aide to rot in this tomb, but he'd never leave her.

             
She wouldn't have been sure a few months ago. Up until that point it had been a fling. No harm done. But then there had been the party in Palm Springs at Bing's place—and what a party that had been.

             
A smile tugged the corners of her mouth, stifling the tears.

             
After that Jack had shown up on her doorstep time and again, and in between those rendezvous he sent his car for her. Those were good days, and always with the promise of more ahead.

             
But then Jackie must have confronted him or something. He'd stopped coming. Stopped calling. Stopped taking
her
calls.

             
Marilyn had been sure he was writing her off. In fact, she'd been on the verge of something really drastic. She gave her head a sharp shake to clear the memory, but immediately regretted the movement.

             
Pain stabbed behind her eyes, flaring in her head for a second before subsiding back to the ever-present ache she'd recently grown accustomed to.

             
Why had he changed his mind? She didn't want to think about it, but it was hard not to in the long hours.

             
Two grueling days passed after Bing's party. Two days during which she'd found her way back to the bottles in the liquor cabinet and the smaller bottles in the bathroom over the sink.

             
Then he had called. All apologies and promises again. He and Jackie had come to an understanding. They would stay together only until his term ended—and only for appearances. When he was out of the White House, Jackie was out of
his
house. If he was re-elected—well, he wasn't sure, but she'd probably leave anyway. The office was too much stress on the modern marriage, they'd tell the press. A few respectful months later, she, Norma Jean Mortensen—and so many names since—would add Kennedy at the end of her name and live happily ever after.

             
A muffled boom reverberated through the tunnel. Marilyn threw herself flat, balling up on the floor, arms folding over her head, a tiny cry escaping her lips. Grit dropped onto her like the sand in an hourglass ticking away seconds, as time itself threatened to engulf her.

             
Where are you, Jack?
He had to come soon. He had too.

             
After a moment, when the wash of particles subsided, she sat back up. Most of the lights were still on, clouds, like fog, drifting through their beams. No new chunks of the tunnel roof had come down that she could see—nothing big anyway—and she'd all but memorized each and every one in her frequent walks from the main hall. She could only take so much of her three companions. They were the family here; she, the outsider.

             
For now, anyway.

             
"Miss Monroe," came a voice from behind.

             
The aide—Jerry or Johnny or whatever. Funny, how she couldn't even remember his name today. She couldn't seem to remember much of anything lately except what had come before the bombs fell—what had come before she was stuck down here with three assholes. All because of the Russkies. Why did men have to be such babies sometimes? And why hadn't Jack been able to stop them? Had he had something else on his mind, some distraction that kept him from being his usual Johnny-on-the-spot self?

             
"Miss Monroe," he said again, voice closer. "The senator says you should come back into the shielded part of the bunker. It's not safe out here."

             
Not safe? Better to take a chance out here than to sit in that glorified bomb shelter with Jackie and her radioactive glare.

             
A shadow fell over her, shifting left and right as the closest of the overhead lights swung back and forth from the last tremor. She looked up at the senator's aide. Jimmy, maybe. He was a cute looking kid. Could she blame him for working for Senator Blowhard? A job was a job. Isn't that what Tinsel Town had taught her? Why should Washington be any different? They were all liars, actors and politicians alike. Only, politicians weren't very good at it.

             
"Miss Monroe?" He winced as she looked up at him.

             
"What is it?" Did she have dust smeared across her face or something?

             
"N-nothing, ma'am," he lied. They were such poor, poor liars. He offered down his hand, the cuff of his fresh white shirt a testament to his dedication to decorum. "You don't look like... you feel very well, is all. You really should stay in the shielded area. Let's get you back to a cot in the dorm."

             
The dorm.
She snickered. A few dozen cots and a toilet with a shower curtain around it did not constitute a dorm, a duplex, or a dive for that matter. But that's what she was stuck with. "I dropped my rations. Just let me get them together."

             
"Don't worry about them, ma'am. I'll come back for them once I get you in bed."

             
She raised an eyebrow at him and watched his pimply face turn beet red. She couldn't help but smile.

             
"I—I mean—I—"

             
"Calm down, tiger. I know what you mean."

             
She reached out and took his hand.

             
The rumble came first from the air. The floor bucked, sending the aide staggering back. Above, the fissure widened an inch, then two. Sand and dirt spilled through the opening like a waterfall.

             
"
Miss Monroe
," yelled Jimmy—his name was Jimmy.

             
And the tunnel filled with sparks giving way to darkness.

* * *

              Marilyn wasn't sure at what point the pain became consciousness.

             
Her body ached. Her temples throbbed and her face was hot. Her stomach felt as if she'd drunk the whole bar herself and chased it all with broken glass. She had to stop the drinking.

             
No, that was all wrong.

             
She opened her eyes. A patch of gray sky peeked down a jagged shaft crisscrossed by twisted metal beams. She was underground in a collapsed tunnel.

             
The bunker.

             
How far up was the shaft? She vaguely remembered a hundred feet. A barrier of reinforced concrete and other materials designed to keep the blast at bay and the radiation exposure to a minimum. Yeah, that's what Jimmy had said when they first found themselves secured in the bunker all those weeks—if not, months—ago.

             
Jimmy.

             
Marilyn wiped soot from her eyes and pushed herself slowly from beneath brick-sized chunks of concrete and moist brown dirt. Mangled metal rods stuck out from random spots at various angles. Luckily for her the gray sky above provided enough light to avoid the sharper pieces as she moved around.

             
An arm; a wrist surrounded by a now filthy white cuff jutted from a pile of debris a few yards away. He was buried. Marilyn lurched toward the young man across an arched chunk of fallen concrete the size of a car, the sudden motion causing her to wretch violently.

             
"Jimmy," she muttered, her lips swollen and sore. "I'm coming." She dug at the loose dirt around his hand. If she could get to him fast enough, he'd be fine.

             
The debris spilled aside needing only a little help to begin cascading away. As the dirt flowed, Jimmy's arm, severed at the elbow, flopped free and rolled into a shadowy gap.

             
Marilyn turned away, vomiting a stringy mess of pink mucous into the grays and browns of the collapsed tunnel.