Slow Apocalypse (67 page)

“I’m Officer Lopez.”

“Could we have your first name?”

“I don’t think that would be wise. My orders are to turn anyone around who comes down from the hills. I don’t like the job, but it’s—”

“I have to tell you, Officer Lopez, that we won’t be turning around. We’re not defying you. It’s just that we
can’t
turn around. There’s nothing for us to go back to. We were forced out of town by the big fire, I suppose you heard of it?”

“The smoke covered us for days. Yeah, we know about it. And I’m damn sorry, but you’re not the first people from L.A. who want to move in with us. There have been thousands of them. We can’t handle them all.”

“That’s the same story we got from all the towns near the coast. People are starving in refugee camps back there.”

“So I’ve heard. I can’t do anything about that.”

“Of course not. What are you doing with the people who come down along the interstate?”

“We’re stopping them. Turning them back.”

“I see. What about the ones who won’t go back? Do you shoot them?”

Officer Lopez looked offended.

“Sir, you need to turn your vehicles around—”

“They’re camped out just north of town,” the female officer said. The man turned to look at her and he didn’t look happy, but he didn’t stop her.

“We don’t let people starve. We don’t have a lot, but we feed them, once a day. They don’t have anyplace to go, either.”

“There is a big camp north of town,” the male officer admitted. “Worse comes to worst, I guess you could come through and stay there. But we can’t admit you to the town. We have to look out for our own.”

“I understand that, Officer, and I understand that you are following orders. But is there any possible way to speak to the ones who
gave
the orders? Can we present our case to them? The city council, the mayor, or whatever?”

Officer Lopez said nothing. Dave thought again that was a good sign. Bob didn’t let the silence grow.

“My daughter Lisa is a doctor. She has spent all her time since the quake and until we left town tending to injured people. Could you folks use a doctor?”

Again, the man said nothing, but the woman looked interested. She glanced at the man in charge, but didn’t say anything.

“Addison here has a horse. I’m betting that you find horses useful these days, with no gasoline for farm machinery.”

“Can it pull a plow?”

“Ranger can do anything,” Addison piped up. “He’s smart, and I can teach him to pull a plow or a wagon.”

“My son Mark is an engineer. He converted the bus and the truck to burn wood or coal. He can fix anything, and he can build anything.”

“We’ve converted a few vehicles ourselves,” the man said.

“You have anyone who can improve them?” Mark asked, stepping forward. “I’ve got a lot of ideas to make them more efficient.”

“That’s not something I know anything about. Look, Mister…”

“Bob.”

“Look…Bob. I can’t promise you anything. I’ve spent the last week on the northern town line, I guess you could call it a border now. I’ve been turning people away, and it about killed me.”

“Me, too,” said the woman.

“The children…Okay, you don’t need to hear my problems.”

“Officer, I’d be glad to listen to any of them.”

“Look,” he said, clearly frustrated. “I’m surprised you made it down here at all. Nobody comes down the hill anymore. We haven’t had to turn anyone away for days.”

“And why is that?” Bob wondered.

“Because of the Overlords,” the officer said. “That’s a motorcycle gang we used to tangle with. They’ve been happy as pigs in shit. They took over the roadhouse up there a month ago. At first they were only robbing travelers, taking everything they owned. They’d let the people walk down. But lately nobody at all has come through.”

“You figure they’re killing them?”

“That’s what I think. They’ve raided some of the homes around here. Killed some people. We’re planning to go up there and try to root them out, but they’re well armed. They’ve got the high ground. I don’t really know if we can take them at all.”

“There’s not as many of them as there were,” the woman said.

The man smiled for the first time.

“Weirdest thing. Last night—early morning, I guess—five of those fuckers came roaring up. I wasn’t here, but the way I heard it, they were yelling something.”

“Way I heard it,” the woman said, “they were yelling about surrendering. Giving up. Something like that.”

“I didn’t hear that. Anyway, they ran right over some tripwires we set out at night, attached to some Claymore mines. Just blew the hell out of them. Four of them died right there. One of them’s still alive, I hear, but he’s not gonna make it.”

Lopez stopped, and frowned.

“Wait a minute. Did you folks…”

“They were running from us,” Bob said, calmly. “They attacked us, and we killed ten of them. There’s nobody left up there.”

The officer frowned even more, and called another officer to come over. They drew back a little and talked quietly, and the other officer hurried to his motorcycle and started it. He headed up the hill.

“If he finds what you say he’ll find…”

“Do you think we could get an audience with your city council then?”

“I’d say it’s a good possibility.”

The motorcycle officer had returned with confirmation of their story, Officer Lopez had made a radio call, and they had threaded the concrete maze into town before they were halted by a train stopped on the tracks. That was amazing enough, but the nature of the train was even more unusual. It was composed entirely of open hopper cars heaped with coal, and pulled by a dusty black open-cab behemoth that seemed to be leaking steam from every seam. It belched and bellowed and gasped.

It had stopped with the first hopper car blocking the road, the engine just beyond it facing south. Painted boldly on the side of the cab was the number 3025. Addison got down from the horse and started walking toward a man in striped coveralls who was standing on the ground contending with a frozen bolt with a wrench as long as his arm.

“It’s Mr. Henrikson,” she said over her shoulder. “The man we talked to at Travel Town. Hi, Mr. Henrikson.” The man looked up. He was sweaty and his face was almost black with coal dust. He frowned for a moment, then his white dentures showed through the darkness in a big smile.

“Why, I remember you, young lady. You’re…”

“Addison.”

“Of course, Addison, how could I forget such a lovely name?”

She blushed, and was clearly pleased. Mark came hurrying up.

“My God, man, is that thing going to explode?”

“Well, I sure hope not, friend. I was hoping to make a few more trips.”

“I can’t believe you got Number 3025 working.”

“You know this engine?”

“Sure. She’s a magnificent old beast. You guys have worked a miracle.”

Henrikson hadn’t seemed to like Mark much at first, but now he warmed to him.

“Well, between you and me, she’s a cantankerous old beast, too. She breaks down every fifty miles or so, but we keep her going. Bubble gum and duct tape, mostly.”

Mark and Dave gave him a hand with the wrench, and the combined efforts of the three got the bolt loosened and then removed. Henrikson peered down into a chamber, shook his head, and poured a can of something into it. As they worked he told them about his recent adventures. This was the first shipment of coal.

“First two were food. Government surplus stuff, crackers and cheese and powdered milk, bags of rice, flour, sugar. Wouldn’t be surprised if some of it was laid down back in the fifties, when everybody was digging fallout shelters. Most of it’s stale as hell, but edible.”

Dave was amazed at how his spirits were lifted at the sight of the old train and its engineer. Somewhere, someone was doing something on a level higher than the strictly local, even if they hadn’t seen much evidence of it.

They were escorted to a high school. City Hall had been damaged and was unsafe, they were told, so the city council had relocated to the school gymnasium. The start of the school year had been indefinitely postponed.

They had been informed that there was a waiting list of several weeks to get a hearing on an application for admittance to the community, and all those people were waiting in the camp north of town. They had been moved to the head of the line by the intervention of one of the councilwomen.

“Any of them can do that,” Lopez told them. “Mostly they’ve done it when personal friends show up from L.A. or San Diego. Councilwoman Ortiz was
real impressed with how you handled the Overlords up there. I told you they came raiding in the night. In one of those raids her sister and brother-in-law and their child were killed. I’d say you’ve got her vote wrapped up.”

“How many are on the council?”

“Five.”

“And how many votes do we need? All five?”

“Just three.”

They gathered in the parking lot to talk it over before entering the gym.

“I guess it’s obvious, but I’ll point it out, anyway,” Bob said. “This…this tribunal will determine our fate for some time to come. Think of it as the most important job interview of your life.”

“It’s not right,” Lisa said. “I’m inclined to throw my lot in with those people in the camp. Why should we be treated any different than them?”

“You’re absolutely right,” Bob said. “It’s
not
fair. And if you want to do that, I will respect your decision. But here’s how I see it. If we are not admitted to this community, I will submit quietly. Then we can talk about whether to go to the camp, or try to go south. But if we
are
admitted, I intend to devote myself not only to the welfare of my family, which has been almost my only concern for many months now, but to the whole community, which includes those in the camp.

“I’m assuming that this town is trying to come back to the point where they can take in those less fortunate than themselves. I assume that about
all
the other towns that have turned us away. It’s been the only way I can get through the day, hoping that people are not solely protecting themselves, but trying to reach a position where they can provide for others, too. If that turns out not to be the case, if no one here is trying to make things better for those outside, then I will join you, Lisa, and stay in the camp.”

Bob paused here, and wiped away tears. Dave was moved, too, as Bob had spoken out loud the thing that had been gnawing at him for a long time, and had been first brought out into the open by his daughter. He desperately wanted a home, but he didn’t want to live behind walls while people died outside.

“I intend to do whatever is needed to provide food and shelter to not only all of you, but to those outside. If it means digging an irrigation ditch with pick and shovel, I will do that. If it means stoop labor, I will do that. But the way I see it, I can only do that on this side of the fence. Yes, I want food and security, but I hope I have the strength of character to give up those things if the work
I’m doing here is only going to benefit a small group of people. If anyone else has a better idea, I’m eager to hear it.”

There was a silence, finally broken by Teddy.

“All I can say is, I think you should do all the talking, Dad.”

There was laughter, and Bob grinned, but he was shaking his head.

“I have been running off at the mouth, haven’t I? But I’m afraid I’m all talked out. I think we should all speak up for ourselves. But we do need a spokesman, and I appeal to the Fearless Leader of our defunct writing team. Dave?”

“Yaaaay!” Jenna shouted, and Addison took up the cheer.

Dave could not recall anything he had ever wanted less than to have the responsibility for the whole group, but he knew that sometimes when a job is thrust upon you, you just have to do it.

“I am confident we’ll get through this,” he told them. “I’ll do what I can. Lopez says we already have one vote. I agree with Bob that we should all speak up. But we should speak up for each other, okay? Any other suggestions?”

“Try to be positive,” Rachel said.

“Without too much ass-kissing,” Teddy suggested.

“We need to look strong, and confidence is always a good thing,” Marian said.

“And tell the truth,” Dave added. “If what we are and what we’ve done isn’t good enough for them…well, then they’re not good enough for us.”

The five members of the council sat behind an ordinary folding cafeteria table, on folding chairs. Behind them were the flags of the United States and California. In front of them were several rows of folding chairs, on which the family was invited to sit.

Councilwoman Barbara Ortiz, a Hispanic woman who looked to be around fifty, sat at one end of the table, smiling at them. None of the others were smiling.

Next to her was Edgar Kovacs, a balding man of around sixty, dressed in the first suit and tie Dave had seen in a long time. He did not look, in Dave’s estimation, like an ally.

Melanie Gold was also sixtyish, with her gray hair in a tight bun and her mouth in a prim line. She reminded Dave of a particularly harsh elementary-school principal he had known, not fondly.

She was the chairperson, and briefly introduced the others. She herself was a lawyer, Kovacs was a real-estate agent, and Ortiz owned a boat dealership.

At the other end was Pablo Martinez, the second Hispanic and the youngest-looking on the panel, late thirties or early forties. He owned a chain of five restaurants strung out along the valley. His expression was neutral, impossible for Dave to read.

And last, between Martinez and Gold, was a very obese man in a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. When Gold started to introduce him he interrupted her, named himself as Stewart Jankowitz, and described himself as a “Net designer, business analyst, blogger, and rabble-rouser.” It sounded like the man saw himself as an iconoclast, who might resist going with the crowd. Dave didn’t know if that was good or bad for his family.

He noticed that not one of the five was in a profession that was in demand at present. There was not much work for lawyers or real-estate agents or the sellers of pleasure boats, and none at all for a Net designer and blogger. The times must be lean for restaurant owners, too, though maybe not so bad for cooks. What work there might be for a “rabble-rouser” was anyone’s guess.