Pursuit of the Apocalypse (13 page)

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Erica looked at his hand. “I was shopping for a loofa.”

This upset him more than Erica thought it would. “I’ve been calling you. Didn’t you hear me?”

Oh great. She was a cop. Stupid uniform. “I really needed a loofa,” she told the man.

The man grabbed the loofa and tossed it back on the table. “Are you going to help me or not?”

Erica had never pretended to be a cop before. Would a cop stand for having a loofa ripped from her hand? Had that particular situation ever come up before? Should she yell at the man for assaulting an officer’s loofa? Should she take it in stride? Should she ignore him and go back to looking at the loofa? In the end she figured that police were always helpful and decided to play it nice.

“What seems to be the problem?” she asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the man. “Maybe just everything.”

“Okay, let’s start with when you interrupted me and go from there.”

“Do you know Caroline?” he asked.

Should she know Caroline? Did everyone know Caroline? Would not knowing Caroline give away her cover as a loofa shopping cop? She looked around the crowd for a moment hoping Caroline wore a giant nametag, but did not spot her. Erica looked annoyed and dodged the question. That’s what Carrie would do. “Why don’t you just tell me what happened?”

“Fine. I asked Caroline out and she said no.”

Erica nodded along with the very brief story. She was still nodding before she realized it was over so she prompted him for more. “And?”

The weak-chinned man threw up his arms. “And what?”

“And what’s the problem?”

“Uh, she said, ‘no.’ What do you think is the problem?”

“Well, it could be your beard,” Erica said.

“What? What does that have to do with anything?”

“I don’t know. It’s kind of weird that there’s no mustache, right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You wanted to know what the problem was. I figured you knew about not having a chin, which is why I assumed you grew the beard, but I think a mustache would go a long way to pulling the whole look together.”

The man gasped a few times and shook his head. “What are you going to do about this?”

“Well, I can’t grow a mustache for you, so I’m not sure what to tell you.”

“Caroline hurt my feelings!” he whined. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Um ...” Erica reached out hesitantly and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “There, there,” she said and then patted his shoulder twice.

The man slapped her hand away and pointed into the crowd. “Arrest her!”

“Arrest who?”

“Caroline!”

“For what? For not wanting to date a no-chinned crybaby?”

“For hurting my feelings.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not against the law.”

“Of ... Of course it is. She assaulted my emotions.” The man looked around in frustration. “Who the hell made you Freedom Enforcement Officer?”

She had stepped in it now. No one, no rational person anyway, would blame her, but it didn’t change the fact that this little failed Romeo could blow her cover. She had to stop thinking like a cop. What would Carrie do?

“Are you going to do something or do I have to go find a real cop?”

Erica grabbed the man by the collar with both hands and pulled him close. She didn’t speak loudly, but made sure a lot of spit left her mouth as she berated him. “Listen, Chinstrap. I’m not going to do a damn thing about it. And you know why? Because that woman deservers a prize for just telling you no and not laughing in your ridiculous face. Speaking as a woman myself, I am going to say she was a real humanitarian for even talking with you to begin with. And here’s a piece of free advice for the next time you try to talk to a woman: Most women like men, not whiny little boys that cry about their feelings being hurt or tattletale to Mommy or the police because they’re too stupid to take an honest look in the mirror and realize they look like a retarded Abraham Lincoln wannabe short a stovepipe hat and the balls to take a little rejection. Now I want you to go find Caroline and apologize for being a big whiny douchebag and then either grow a fucking mustache or shave that stupid fucking beard!”

Erica held his terrified glance for a silent minute before letting him go. The man backed away and whimpered, “This was supposed to be a safe space.”

Erica shook her head as he ran off into the crowd. This place was crazy beyond anything she had ever seen, and she knew a group of people that worshipped a tree because one particular squirrel chose to live in it. She had to get out of here before she went crazy with them.

The man tending the booth tapped her on the shoulder. “You still want the loofa, Officer?”

Erica ignored him and started stomping again. She hadn’t taken four stomps when there was a crack and another shout from the crowd.

“You worthless piece of shit!”

Erica turned reflexively towards the voice and saw a man crack a woman across the jaw. The woman dropped to the ground, and before she could think of what Carrie would do, she was running towards the altercation.

The crowd had cleared around the pair and the man raised his hand to strike again.

Erica dove and tackled him to the ground.

He wasn’t expecting any resistance and her attack knocked the wind out of him. He wheezed as she rolled him over and pulled his hands behind his back. He struggled, but she dug her knee into his lower back and ground it around a bit.

“Freedom Police. Stop struggling.”

“What did I do?”

“Don’t give me that. I saw you hit that woman. Twice.”

“So? That’s not against the law.”

“You’d better believe it is. You might have hurt her feelings.”

“She’s a slave. She’s not allowed to have feelings.”

Erica looked to the beaten woman. For the first time she noticed that the woman was dressed in rags compared to the others.

The woman sobbed and tugged the collar of her shirt down to reveal a branded T on her collarbone. She met Erica’s gaze for only an instant before turning away and crying harder.

“Oh, great,” the man pinned beneath her whined. “You made my slave cry. Thanks a lot.”

The crowd surrounded her and pulled her back away from the man. They helped brush her off and explained that she must not have known the woman was a slave or, surely, a Freedom Enforcement Officer would never have intervened.

Erica backed away as the man rose and collected his property. Every time she ran into slavery, it sickened her. Every place that had it justified it a different way. How could anyone be like this? How could anyone rationalize it? Especially under the banner of freedom and tolerance; it turned her stomach.

The crowd moved in to help the man off the ground and left the woman weeping all alone.

Erica stepped over and offered her hand to help the woman up.

The woman looked at the uniform and crawled quickly away.

Erica wasn’t sure what to do. Every part of her wanted to stand up and tell these people off. Maybe punch a few of them to get the point across. She had a thousand lectures at the ready but knew they would do no good. These weren’t the kind of people that listened.

She looked at the crowd and realized they were all like Carrie. The people here believed they held the moral high ground and there was no more seductive position. They had no doubt convinced themselves that how they treated the woman and other slaves was fair and just. And possibly for the slaves’ own good.

She looked around the crowd and saw for the first time the distinct classes. The well groomed and the threadbare clothes. The broad smiles and cast down eyes. It wasn’t the town of happy carefree citizens. It was a city of monsters. All through the crowd men and women of all races were subjugated.

She also began to notice several more Freedom Enforcement Officers in maroon jackets and berets. They were on their way to check on the commotion. One group of officers was being led straight to her by the chinless man. She turned to find a way out and saw Carrie stomping across the square with the two guards. Behind her, Mr. Christopher held his side, trying to keep up.

Erica ran and the crowd parted for the uniform. She tossed the beret aside and shed the jacket somewhere in the marketplace. Pushing her way through the crowd she finally reached the edge of the market and dashed down the paved walkway around the corner of a building.

She didn’t stop. She turned down an alleyway and ducked up another side street racing towards what she hoped was the edge of the campus. There were fewer people in the backstreets and service ways and she was moving fast enough that anyone who spotted her had little time to react before she was out of sight.

But it wasn’t long before her legs began to tire. The officers’ shouts were catching up to her. She couldn’t see them but they had to be close. She couldn’t keep up the pace.

Another turn brought her to the eastern edge of the college grounds. The boundary was defined by a creek and a tree line forming the edge of a wooded area. It could be a park or preserve. It could be the edge of a national forest for all she knew. She ran as fast as her legs were willing and made it as far as a pedestrian bridge before the gunshots began.

The walkway rails splintered as bullets intended for her buried themselves into the bridge at her feet.

She looked over the rail to the creek below. The water raged. The creek was swollen from a recent storm. A bullet hummed by her ear, and she made her decision. She hit the side of the bridge and swung her legs over, dropping into the frigid current. She took a breath all the way to the water and stayed under as long as she could.

SEVENTEEN

Tolerance’s town square was settling from some kind of commotion when Jerry and Chewy arrived. People were on the ground with their heads between their knees crying into their hands. Others paced back and forth arguing with themselves and losing. Others huddled together talking excitedly.

It was interesting to watch the citizens of Tolerance panic because they all wanted to freak out but did their best not to interrupt one another lest they offend someone.

Jerry took in the scene and immediately assumed someone had died. He scanned the area looking for a body. There would be a group of relatively calm people around it. Paramedics or whatever passed for doctors in the town. He saw nothing but an overexcited populace that didn’t know what to do with itself.

“What do you think happened here, girl?” he asked Chewy.

The dog had no idea.

Several officers in maroon coats and dumb hats were mingling in the crowd trying to calm more excited members. Several people were being questioned by another group of uniformed men and women that were trying to make sense of what happened.

A man started yelling. What he was saying was unintelligible, but there was anger in his shouting. He wasn’t yelling at anyone in particular, but it made a woman nearby cry. One man just sat down, pulled his knees to his chest and started rocking back and forth.

Another man in a maroon coat ran into the square and found the officers that were conducting the investigation. He whispered in one of the officer’s ears which caused that officer to nod and walk to the center of the crowd.

The officer raised his arms and called to the crowd. “Can I have your attention, please?”

The man stopped yelling. The woman stopped crying. The man on the ground kept rocking but gave the officer his attention as instructed. The others stopped pacing and peeled from their groups. They all turned toward the man in maroon.

After the murmurs stopped, he continued. “First of all, I want to assure you all that there is no danger. You are all safe here.”

There was a general sigh from the crowd but apprehension still hung in the air.

“I know that today’s events have been very unsettling. Some of you are feeling scared. And you have every right to those feelings.” He looked around the crowd and made eye contact with many of the individuals. He gave each a reassuring nod. “I also want to remind you that you are not alone. You are never alone here. This is a safe space. However, for any of you that still aren’t comfortable, I’ve just been notified that the Counselor Response Assurance Protocol has been activated.”

With one voice, sobs turned to sniffles. Cries turned to cheers. Woes turned to woohoos.

Jerry tried not to laugh. The last time he had been through town he had witnessed a small slave uprising. Two men and a woman had sat in the marketplace and refused to move much to the consternation of everyone. Once they began chanting about wanting to be set free, the entire town went nuts. All activity ceased. Full-grown adults began to cry. Children asked the adults why they were crying. The children were told to quit judging the adults.

The Freedom Enforcement Officers were called in to crush the rebellion, which they did by arresting the three slaves, but the psychological damage had been done. So the Counselor Response Assurance Protocol had been activated and its agents were sent into the crowd.

The cheers turned to a quiet enthusiasm and the crowd turned together to face what had once been the school’s administration building. Their eyes moved toward the bell tower and they waited. Even the man who had been rocking on the ground got to his feet and held his breath.

The clock tower bells rang. Four loud bongs sounded five seconds apart. As the last peel faded, the doors of the admin building opened and the Counselor Response team emerged.

Thirty men and women filed out into the courtyard and moved into a formation five columns across and six rows deep. They all smiled with sad eyes and each was armed with a teddy bear and the words needed to bring calm to the masses.

They marched in a soothing and gentle cadence, and as they neared the crowd they fanned out into a single line and opened their arms.

Most in the crowd stood their ground and began to weep tears of relief. Others opened their own arms to prepare for the incoming hugs. The man who had been rocking on the ground was not so patient. He ran towards the nearest member and fell into the counselor’s arms and placed his head against the man’s chest. The counselor embraced him and began to rock slowly back and forth.