The day after: An apocalyptic morning (24 page)

              "There's me for instance, the captain of the local firehouse. I got put into a leadership role because I'm able to take charge of people and figure out how to get things done. And then there's Dale, who was the manager of the grocery store. He was here doing what he does and he came into power because he was perceived as being the one who controlled the food. This position was strengthened because Jessica, who was the leader of the PTA and the homeowners association and the library committee and god knows what else, snatched him up as a plaything before any of the other women thought to do that. Dale's a major pain in the ass, but he's manageable. As for the rest of the men, we have a few teachers from the elementary school, a few of them were checkers at the grocery store, one worked at the gas station, one was a pool guy, two were PG&E workers that were installing an electrical box. We also have a couple of landscapers that were up here mowing lawns, a plumber that was fixing someone's pipes, even a couple of nineteen year old Mormons that were up here doing the bicycle rounds."

              "Not one man was home from work for the day?" Skip asked. "Not a single one?"

              "Not that survived anyway," Paul told him. "Keep in mind that nearly a third of the houses were located up on the hill over the canyon. They all went down in the earthquake. Maybe some of the men were home up there but there weren't any down here. It's not all that surprising when you think about the kind of people we're talking about here. Very conformist. They were all office hours type of people doing their climb up whatever ladder they were on. There was hardly a person in town under thirty-two years old, which means they were in the frantic parts of their careers where they have to put in ungodly hours. They wouldn't have taken a day off unless they were just about dead."

              "So you have a bunch of yuppie women to deal with?"

              "You got it," he said. "And I'm telling you, it's a trial. Some of them are pretty sharp but a lot of them are just the most stereotypical airheads you could ever imagine. They're women who've been used to their good looks getting them by for all of their lives and they don't really seem to grasp that things are a lot different now. It seems like every day I'm dealing with some kind of crisis about work details or guard duties or some other task that someone has been assigned that they think is beneath them. I actually had one refuse to learn how to shoot a rifle because she broke a fucking fingernail while she was trying to load it."

              "Jesus," Skip said, trying to imagine how he would have reacted to that. It probably wouldn't have been pretty.

              "Take the issue of the baths for instance. That was made the number one priority when we organized and started getting our shit together. Before we even got around to gathering weapons up and learning how to use them, before we tackled the issue of town security, they wanted to have a working bath that had hot water. Can you fucking believe it? The world collapses around them, billions of people are dead, we don't have enough food to make it through the winter, and they demand that someone rig them up a freakin' bathtub with running water. I'm telling you, sometimes it seems like it would just be easier to take a few guns and head out on my own."

              "No," Skip said, shaking his head. "You wouldn't want to do that. You can't imagine what its like out there unless you've been through it. At least you have some semblance of order in here, at least you can tell yourself that you'll probably be alive this time next week."

              "That's true," Paul sighed, crushing out his smoke in a beer can that had been fashioned into an ashtray. "I hope I wasn't belittling what you've gone through with my whining. Part of the grass is always greener syndrome I guess."

              "Don't worry about it."

              "So what about these two kids you have? You said they're still out on the other side of the bridge. Are they safe out there? Should we try to bring them in?"

              "They're as safe as they can be out there," Skip said. "I've taught them how to build their shelter so no one will happen across it or spot it. They'll be under cover in there by now and they're well armed with weapons that they know how to use. There won't be any way to bring them in tonight. I told them to climb the hill in the morning and keep an eye out for me."

              "They sound like they're pretty smart," Paul said.

              "They're good kids," Skip agreed, smiling as he thought of them. "Actually, I don't have any right to call them kids anymore. They may be teenagers, but they've grown up since the impact." He told Paul about the firefight with the two hunters.

              "Unbelievable," Paul said, obviously impressed. "You took two teenagers that had never held a gun in their lives and turned them into an infantry squad. I wish I could do that with my people. I'm afraid your experience with the bridge guards and the two that captured you is more the rule than the exception. They volunteer for guard duty at night not so they can help protect us from outsiders but so they can boff each other in privacy. I just cannot get these people to take security seriously. They're too caught up in the who is fucking whom game."

              "I take it that the woman to man ratio is somewhat of a problem?"

              "It's a huge problem," he said, pulling another smoke from the pack and sparking up. "It's funny. I never would have thought that I would end up in charge of a group in which the women were all very attractive, in their sexual prime, and outnumbered the men by a ratio of nearly six to one, and that I would hate it. But I'm here to tell you now, it is not the freakin' Garden of Eden. People were not meant to live like this. It screws with their sensibilities and their morality. It pushes them over the edge."

              "What do you mean?" Skip wanted to know.

              "Well, the basic problem is that all of us men have latched onto a woman who is our "official" partner, I guess you'd say. I'm no exception to this. Even though my wife is less than two weeks dead, I'm now sharing my bed with Janet, who used to be one of the kindergarten teachers at the school. I mean, why not, right?"

              "Right," Skip wholeheartedly agreed, thinking about his own relationship with Christine.

              "So that's the surface of the whole thing. All of the men have a partner. The problem is that that leaves more than a hundred women, all of whom are in the prime of their lives and most of whom are accustomed to having a male to take care of them, without a partner. Most of these women are also the types who have no problem undercutting each other and backstabbing in order to get something that they want. So here in our happy little town we constantly have attractive women on the prowl, trying to steal a man away from one of the women who already has one. And we're not talking about coy flirtation or innuendo here. They will do almost anything to achieve this goal short of actually killing a rival. I imagine it's only a Micker of time before one of them tries that. And the men..." he shook his head a little. "Well, I don't have to tell you how men are. Most of us up here were blue-collar types before the comet and these are the kind of women that we always considered to be way out of our league. It's not very surprising that we find it hard to resist the temptation when one of these women basically asks us to fuck her. They are often quite shameless in their manner of seduction. I myself, as moral and monogamous as I like to think I am, have given in more than once. You simply can't help it."

              Skip listened to all of this carefully. "Beautiful women constantly on the prowl?" he asked. "I'm waiting for you to tell me that part about how this is bad."

              Paul laughed, taking a deep drag on his cigarette. "Sounds ideal, doesn't it? It's not. Most of the men here have already switched partners three or four times just since the comet struck and of those that haven't, I can't think of a single one that's not stringing two or three along on the side. The tension that this creates among the women is volatile. Most of the conversation around here is about who is making a move, who is thinking of changing partners, who is resorting to what to get what she wants. Every day there are at least four physical fights about someone who either has or is perceived to have tried to make a move. The rumors spread around like wildfire and the fact that you cannot judge how accurate they are only makes things worse. And then you have Jessica, who lives in constant fear of someone stealing Dale from her. She is one of the worst sources of the rumors and prides herself on always knowing what's going on. But at the same time, she is always trying to push us, as a group, to kick out any woman that is caught engaging in 'adulterous activity', as she puts it. So far Dale, myself, and some of the other men have always managed to keep her from actually expelling someone who gets caught fucking the wrong person, but her point of view is starting to spread, particularly among those who have a legitimate partner."

              "What is it that they are after?" Skip asked. "I mean, besides sex, why is it so important that they have a man to call their own. Don't they realize that this is a different world now?"

              "I don't think that a lot of them realize that," Paul said. "As for what they are after, a lot of it depends on the individual woman. For some, it's strictly sex that they want. They're horny and they want to fulfill a biological need. They are the easiest ones to deal with and they are the only ones that I, shall we say... transgress with, when I do. They just want to get fucked for the sheer enjoyment of it. Others however, cannot seem to live without a man's identity locked up with theirs and they are the ones who are the source of most of the problems here. Thanks to Jessica and a few others like her, there is now a perception that those who are officially partnered with a man are somehow better than those who are not. Thus, we have the fierce and often violent competition to secure attached status. I don't mess with the women who are out for that."

              "God," Skip said, shaking his head a little. "And I thought relationships were complicated before."

              "No shit," Paul agreed.

              There was a soft knock at the door and Missy opened it a crack without waiting for a reply. She stuck her head in. "Paul," she said, "Steve and Laura are here. I had them wait for you in the main office."

              "Thanks, Missy," he said, standing up. "Do they know why they're here?"

              "Well..." she started, obvious hesitant to say that they'd been filled in on their mistake.

              "Never mind," Paul sighed. "Has Hector checked in for his perimeter shift yet?"

              "He just got here," she told him.

              "Good. I want you and Hector to keep an eye on Skip here. I've already got Jeff rounding up some clothes and shaving stuff for him. Take him over to the bath and let him get himself cleaned up. Then find him some place to crash for the night in the building. Skip is to be treated as a compulsory guest, okay?"

              "A what?" she asked, her brow wrinkling in confusion.

              "That means you will treat him politely and tend to his needs within reason, but don't give him a gun or let him out of your sight, okay? He is still to be considered potentially dangerous to us."

              Her eyes tracked over to Skip for a moment and she offered a nervous giggle. "Okay," she said.

              "I'll wait here until you find Hector. Be sure you each have a pistol please."

              "Right," she said, her head disappearing.

              Once she was gone Paul looked at Skip. "No offense taken I hope? You seem like you're on the up and up but, as you've pointed out yourself, you can't be too careful."

              "No offense at all," he said. "And if nothing else, I think the chance to bathe will make this whole trip worthwhile."

              Paul gave a cynical look. "I'm sure you'll enjoy it," he said. "Freakin' baths are what we specialize in here."

              The bathing area was located in what had once been a women's locker room adjacent to the community center's basketball court. A large marble tub had been placed atop of jack stands directly above the drain in the floor of the communal showers. Two hoses - a two and a half inch diameter fire hose and a standard garden hose - were curled neatly up on the floor next to it, nozzles on one end, the other ends snaking up and out of the building through a window. A shelf had been erected next to the tub and it was filled with towels, washcloths, bottles of shampoo, conditioner, bubble bath, bath beads, and every other conceivable bath option. A hand lettered sign, printed in spiky, feminine script, read: PLEASE, CLEAN THE TUB AFTER BATHING. HAVE COURTESY FOR OTHERS! Light came from a serious of oil lamps and candles that had been placed around the perimeter of the tub.

              Skip looked at all of this in frank amazement as Missy and Hector, a young Mexican man, led him into the room. Hector was carrying an armful of fresh clothing with him, which he set down on the towel shelf. Both of the guards had pistols strapped to their waists but neither one of them seemed particularly concerned that he would try some sort of dangerous move on them.

              "Hecky," Missy asked her fellow guard, "can you go start the pump on the fire engine?"

              "Sure," he said in heavily accented English. "Right away." He headed back out the door.