American Apocalypse Wastelands (36 page)

Max usually told our stories when we had one. I would just sit back, listen, and watch people's faces. It was going to be interesting to see how he handled the bunnies from the sky.

We also had to discuss what we would ask for when I called Big Daddy. I planned to tell him what we'd found in Bruxton and ask for some goodies. Since we had not found anything of importance, it would be interesting to see what the payoff would be. Probably a big nothing burger with a side order of unreturned calls.

The gossip, if you want to call it that, was about the town's accelerating death rate. Getting insulin on a regular basis was fast becoming a problem. It just wasn't happening anymore. Almost any medication that required a daily dosage was difficult to find.

As supplies dried up, the problem worsened. Scarcity meant that prescriptions shipped through the mail often
did not arrive. Postal workers probably made more money selling Grandpa's blood pressure medicine than they got in pay.

There were reports that the big pharmaceuticals didn't even make medications in North America anymore. On top of that, ever since the dollar got the big slap-down, manufacturers wouldn't ship products unless the distributor could pay in a “real currency.” And prices got marked up to the point where if you didn't absolutely need it to live, you went without. If you needed it that badly, then you had to decide how far you were willing to go to stay alive.

There was also the growing problem of people migrating to and from the Zones. Or just floating, unable to get into a Zone but unwilling or unable to do what was needed to survive outside of one. These people were not predators. At least I didn't see them that way. Rather, they were jackals and professional victims—people who were at a loss how to survive and who, increasingly, got no tolerance or sympathy from the rest of us.

Max told our story the way he usually did. He skipped over the actual killing unless he thought a point needed to be made. Instead, he emphasized the terrain, what we saw and didn't see, and the town itself.

He mentioned the communications array and the indication that something was going on. That the setup screamed the Feds was a given. What they were doing was less clear.

I noticed that Max omitted the bunny drop. I caught him later and said, “What, no bunnies from heaven? You skipped the best part.”

He stopped, looked away for a second, and then faced me. “I did it on purpose. We don't need to be starting anything with people that the kid can't finish. If it wasn't a fluke, it will happen again. If not, well, such is life.”

I thought about it. “Okay. I agree, but I still am going to tell Night.”

Max laughed as he walked away and said, “Fine. She would have gotten it out of you anyway.”

 

The next two weeks flew by. I called Eddie—our contact on the Community Policing and Freedom Assistance package—using the landline at the station.

I called him right after calling the number Big Daddy had given me. Big Daddy hadn't answered. Instead I got a female who gave me only one-syllable responses after I started talking. She also hung up without saying goodbye. Rather rude of her, I thought.

Eddie was noncommittal about providing anything more. He told me everything was scarce at the moment, but that anything was possible. He also said it was important for us to submit our monthly status and crime reports in a timely manner, and asked if we had gotten the spreadsheet he had e-mailed us. We needed to update that for him as soon as possible, he said.

I told him we would get back to him on all of the above, and gave him our order list. Of course, he wanted me to e-mail him a copy and fill out the special request form available on their web site. I gave him the order over the phone anyway.

We wanted vitamins, chard seeds
,
MREs, helmets, ammo, more weapons, feminine care products, antibiotics, insulin, socks, underwear, generators, cloth diapers,
and all of Clint Eastwood's and Monty Python's movies on DVD. We had decided to ask for the world and hope that at least we'd get Latvia. I added the movie request while I had him on the phone. Once Night got bigger, I figured we would need something else to do in bed.

 

Food storage and distribution was a major headache. Damn, I had to fight back the desire not to hurt some of these people. You'd think in a town this small people would see the need to pull together, shut the hell up, and do what I told them. No. We had to talk about it, argue about it, and compromise.

Night pulled me aside at one point and explained winwin negotiating to me.

I listened and then asked her, only partly kidding, “If I can't shoot them, can I disappear a couple of them?”

“No. That is not an option.”

The food distribution and storage was running aground on control, power, and political issues. I listened to people claim it was socialist, that we were outsiders trying to take over, that we were alarmists, and that everything was going to be okay “real soon.”

I think the speakers actually believed what they were saying most of the time. I understood that. It was when they started talking shit just to camouflage their real agenda that I got pissed. The worst ones were the preachers, which came as no surprise to me, and we had a lot of them.

We had six churches in a town of less than a thousand people. When news got out that the pastor of the Episcopal Church was going to run the new food bank, the other pastors decided they needed to host one also. Why?
Because they saw it as a source of power. Forget about feeding the hungry; it was about feeding their egos.

Who would have access to food also became an issue. What about those Pope-worshiping Catholics? Didn't they have their own? Or the illegal immigrants? Never mind that we only had a handful of those, and they were already starving. One dumb-ass wanted to feed only those who had been “saved” or who would agree to let the Lord into their lives, preferably as a member of his congregation. I was really, really tempted to shoot him on the spot.

Night came up with the idea of treating the food bank as an actual bank, which created a new problem. Each resident could pay in cash, gold, or labor to the food bank; in turn they would be guaranteed enough food for a meal every day for a period of time.

There was no way in hell we were going to be able to grow or hunt enough food for everyone. Night figured that with cash we could buy the basics in bulk whenever we found them and store them for later use. It was a good idea, but more than anything, it convinced the preachers even more that they needed their own food banks.

We ended up compromising. Each pastor could start a food bank. Anyone in their congregation who signed up was their responsibility. If they ran into difficulties or it didn't work out, that was their problem. The town committed itself to providing one meal a day for children under fourteen and adults over seventy.

I asked Night later, “Why are we feeding the really old? I mean, I understand it is good and noble and all, but why?”

She replied, “Don't worry about it. Most of them will be dead by the new year anyways.”

 

We had to stop locking up locals for petty offenses. Public drunkenness, domestic disturbance, possession of minor amounts of drugs except for meth—those sorts of things only got a warning. The warning was just a little different now. Usually we would say something along the lines of, “If I have to come back here again for the same shit, I am going to kick your ass.” After we did that a few times, most of the locals learned that we were serious.

I never threatened anyone with an ass-kicking, although I did bust a barrel across one drunk fool's head just because he thought that he could get away with talking shit to me. I did not tolerate that. Generally, locals were polite to me and I was polite to them.

If a man was a wife-smacker, then we usually told the woman, “Next time shoot his ass. We don't care. If you don't want to do that, then leave.” So far we hadn't had any woman tell us she had no place to go. If one did, we would have found a place for her.

If the man pushed it, I told the patrol officers to kick his ass. If it seemed like someone was escalating things, they had orders to shoot his ass on the spot. No one got shot over that. I didn't expect them to. They were all related or had known each other for years. They knew that if it got ugly enough, I would find them. That seemed to work.

If you were not a local, we would put you in holding. Depending on what brought you to our attention, we might call the state police and have them run your background.
Most times we didn't bother. If it wasn't a crime of violence, you saw the magistrate, paid a fine, and were moved on. If you smacked a local and were at fault, then you resisted arrest, paid the fine, and were moved on.

We finally got our town alarm system working. The Episcopal church had a bell, which we convinced the pastor to donate. It sat in the front of the church as a historical artifact, and it was one heavy piece of metal to move. We ended up having to use the front-loader, which we had donated to the town after building the berm. We had held back the Bobcat, though.

It was Night's idea to ring the bell once every four hours. She figured it would get everyone used to hearing it. Plus, it let everyone know that someone was alert and watching. The system was simple: One ring meant all was well. Two rings meant all available officers and militia were needed at the station. Constant ringing meant all block managers should get their blocks ready and armed; all militia report to the town square and all officers to the station.

The people who thought we were alarmists began to reconsider as they watched friends and family die from lack of medications. They also became more appreciative of our security efforts when stories of carjackings and raids at isolated farmhouses began making the rounds with more frequency. Cattle rustling was coming back in a big way, too.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Freya did not speak English. Well, not much. That put a bit of a damper on finding out who she was, why she was in the woods, and how she got hawks to deliver bunnies on demand. Initially, we left her with the kids at the farm, the idea being that she could watch them, help with chores, and learn to speak English.

That did not work out very well. After the second week, the kids wanted to know if Auntie Night or I could take her into town with us.

I asked them why. All they said was, “Uncle G, she isn't a kid. She's old.” I asked them to explain but they couldn't. They just kept saying, “She isn't a kid.”

 

The squad came back from its second foraging trip to the surrounding countryside. They brought back a couple iron stoves, some lanterns, and some old tools. One of the tools was a hand-cranked drill. We passed that around and stared at it. The rest, as far as I could tell, was junk.

When I got a chance to talk to Diesel alone I asked him, “What was it like out there?”

“Weird, G, and probably going to get weirder. We're not finding much of anything. Hell, a couple places we pulled into, we were coming in as other people were leaving.”

“That had to be a bit tense.” I laughed.

“Yeah, well, we showed them ours, and they showed us theirs, and we both decided it wasn't worth it.”

“So what were the people like? Talk to me, Diesel.”

He rubbed his face and reset the faded ball cap on his head. “People were hostile. Of course, we didn't look like a bunch of bicycling Mormons.”

I nodded. That made sense. A handful of warriors armed with rifles and sawed-off shotguns would tend to make people standoffish.

“We saw a lot of stupid shit. Houses burned out for no reason we could see. Whacked-out people. Bizarre shit spray-painted on billboards. People are hungry, pissed, and feeling like they got the shaft. They just haven't figured out who did it, how it happened, and why it happened to them personally.”

“So you telling me it's not worth it?”

“Yes and no, G. We can't just go out there and drive around. Eventually we're going to end up in a situation where we lose people and have nothing to show for it. We need intel. We need a destination and some idea what we'll find when we get there.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. The problem is we haven't figured out yet if we want to be farmers or the Golden Horde.”

He laughed. “G, between me and you, the hell with farming. I'll go with the Golden Horde option.”

I agreed with him but I played it off. I didn't want to encourage the idea. We were here, and that was how we were going to play it.

 

Later I told Night about what the kids had said about Freya.

“So did she drop bunnies on their heads, too?” she asked.

“Night, what's the matter? You don't like her?”

She sighed, looked away, and looked back at me. “It's not that I don't like her.”

She paused and brushed her hair back. “It's more like she scares me. No, that's not right. Sometimes I look at her, and it's like I see her but I don't. She is . . . I don't know how to say this... It's like she's shielding herself. Like her body is really a cloud or a . . . I don't know. I do know that she is far more than she seems—and that, I think, is what scares me the most.”

“So this means tomorrow it will be ‘Take the kid to work day' for me?”

She smiled. “I think it would be better if you did. I suppose I should be worried about her safety, but you know something? I'm not.”

“Have you heard her talk?”

Night shook her head. “No. She says hello and she's friendly, but no, she's not a talker.”

“Woof seems to like her.”

“Have you watched Woof around her? No, you've been in town every day. Woof watches her. He is not scared of her—it's more like he's waiting for her to do something. He tracks her with his eyes wherever she goes.”