One Second After (33 page)

“What?”

John rousing from his shock regarding trying to get insulin could see it coming and looked over at Charlie. Charlie just did not seem to be in form; quick decisions were coming slower now. Was it just simple exhaustion, or could it be something else?

“Higher rations for the police force, those doing hard labor, and the militia,” Kellor said.

“I don't like this,” Kate interjected. “The old line from
Animal Farm
that pigs are more equal than other animals.”

“Kate, the level for rations has dropped below maintaining efficiency for doing anything much beyond getting out of bed and then just sitting
all day. We got people up trying to contain that fire along Haw Creek; guys fighting forest fires used to get high-energy diets of upwards of four thousand or more calories a day. Same with soldiers. You can't expect people to do hard work on nine hundred calories a day. If we do, in three more weeks everyone will be in collapse, too weak to even start bringing in the harvest from the few farms with corn, let alone defend the gap, contain people wandering around insane . . .”

Kellor's voice died off and he just sat there numb.

“We have to do it,” John said.

“John, I kind of thought you'd be on my side in this,” Kate replied.

John shook his head.

“Precedents throughout history. Ancient and medieval cities under siege, soldiers always received more rations. Though it was more for psychological and morale impact during World War II, our rationing was always directed towards getting resources to the men on the front line. In every other country in that war, the rationing was very real and at times,” he hesitated, “a form of triage.

“Doc mentioned Leningrad. There they had to make the hard assessment that there simply wasn't enough food for everyone to stay alive, so it came down to soldiers and then essential workers getting enough to keep going, another level down for expectant and new mothers, children, and . . .”

He stopped speaking and looked back at Kellor.

“We have just over ten thousand souls in our communities. About enough food still on hand to keep a thousand, maybe two thousand in top health until autumn, when we'll at least get some small amount of food in from the cornfields and orchards. We try and feed everyone at the same level, I doubt if many will survive, dying from both starvation and also being overrun by desperate people from the outside more hungry than us. Long before that, what semblance of order we have will totally break down as well.”

“Sweet Jesus, are we talking about deliberately starving some of our people to death?” Kate cried. “This is America, for God's sake.”

No one spoke for a moment. For John it was the word “America” that hit. The land of milk and honey, the land where obesity had been considered a major health issue, almost a national right, with food chains boasting about who had the biggest, fattest burger. He often wondered, even then, what reaction there would be if such ads had been sent to Liberia, Yemen, or Afghanistan, showing America's excessive waste.

“ ‘Deliberately starving people to death' is putting it rather bluntly,” Kellor replied defensively.

“Death is rather blunt,” Kate shot back.

“It's the harsh reality,” John said, his voice distant. “It is that simple. We have
x
amount of food and
y
amount of people. The formula collapses in the next couple of weeks. The
y
amount of people is going to have to be subdivided if any are to survive.”

“We have to do it,” Charlie said, his voice soft.

“Well, I'm not going along with it,” Kate said.

“Remember, Kate, this is not a democracy at the moment. If you wish not to go along with it and stop drawing rations, that is fine with me.”

“The rest of you here?” Kate shouted. “Now you do have
Animal Farm
; you have the commissars and the famines in Russia. Do you think people will stand for it?”

“Personally, I'm not going to draw extra rations,” Charlie said.

“Charlie,” Doc interjected, “you have to. I know your health; remember, I was your family doc. You have a touch of hypertension and acid reflux. You're slowing down even now; everyone in this room can see it.”

“It's just exhaustion,” Charlie replied sharply. “Let me get a good night's sleep undisturbed.”

“Bullshit,” Doc snapped. “You're doing the work of two men and eating the same as everyone else. You'll burn out; you
are
burning out.”

“Well, it'd be one helluva note to announce we're going to starve a lot of people around here and I'm walking around fat and happy. Screw that.”

John lowered his head.

“He's right,” John whispered. “Though I disagree on one point. Not a word of this is to be discussed publicly.”

“You do sound like a commissar now!” Kate shouted.

He glared at her.

“Think I like what I just said?” John replied sharply. “But Charlie, if you go outside and say that some are now going to get more rations it will be a riot within the hour. I'd suggest we quietly move some extra rations up to the college campus. What we're talking about primarily applies to them anyhow. Those getting extra food get it there and there only. But as for Charlie's personal example, that's his decision and, I'll have to say, the moral one.”

Charlie nodded and slowly sat down.

“Moving food in secret? Secret eating while others starve?” Kate shook her head. “I never dreamed we'd come to this point so fast, and agree to it, here, right here in our town.”

“The first that would get hit by the rioting are the outsiders,” John said. “There's been a semblance of acceptance, some bonding, that would disintegrate, Kate, and I'm willing to bet would turn into murders and lynchings, a massive scream to throw everyone out who wasn't living here the day of the event. Then our two communities will start glaring at each other. Frankly, Swannanoa has more food per person than we do, a lot more with their extra cattle and hogs. We'll split and those here will start screaming about marching there to take their cattle.

“You hear that, Kate? It's like something out of ancient history, the Bible; we'll be raiding each other for cattle. Then it will be every man for himself and we'll all die as a result if someone from the outside, with some organization and strength, then comes rolling in. There's your choice, Kate. Go ahead. What should we do?”

She glared at him, unable to reply.

John looked over to Tom, who had remained silent throughout the debate, and Tom nodded in agreement.

“I know I couldn't keep order. I'd have to call in the college militia, and even there, most of those kids would be defined as outsiders as well, and the mob ready to turn on them. It would be a helluva mess, Kate. John's right, we have to do this, but we have to keep it quiet.”

“So in other words, horde some food for a selected few, do it in secret so that by the time the rest of the people figure it out, they'll be too weak to act.”

John stared at her.

“Yes.”

“You bastards.”

“Kate, it's been this way throughout history. America, though, hasn't faced it since,” he paused, “maybe parts of the South in the Civil War. Even then that was just limited. We've never seen anything like this before, but in reality, it has to be done if any survive. We can't keep social order, defend ourselves, and at the same time give out some kind of equal amounts of food to everyone else. If we try that, everyone will die.”

“I won't accept extra food.”

“No one is forcing you to,” John said softly.

“Kate, you cannot discuss this outside this room,” Charlie said sharply.

She glared at him.

“Or what?”

“I'll have you arrested.”

“Sieg heil, mein Führer,” and she raised her hand in the fascist salute.

“Damn it, Kate,” Charlie snapped, his voice almost breaking. “I don't want this any more than you, so don't ride me on it.”

She lowered her head.

“It has to stay in this room,” John said sharply.

“Are you getting an extra?” Kate asked.

“Hell, no. We're still getting by.”

“All right, Charlie. You don't take extra rations, none of us here do, and I'll go along with it.”

“Tom has to be on the list for extra rations,” Kellor said.

“Like hell.”

John looked at Tom. His rotund pre-war form had melted away quickly, belt drawn in now by several notches.

“All police, firefighters, the militia, those doing essential work,” John said, “and grave diggers.”

There was a long silence.

“And Doc, you, too,” John said.

Doc nodded.

“I won't hide behind false heroics. I hate the thought, but I know my performance is degrading fast. I set a compound fracture yesterday, one of the Quincy boys, fell off a horse. I thought I was going to faint towards the end of it. If we don't have doctors and nurses in this town who can function, well, we're all dead anyhow then.”

“How many will we lose?” Charlie asked.

“When?”

“You said the curve is going to start going up again. How many do we lose in two or three months?”

Doc looked around the room.

“One-third to one-half if we follow the plan just outlined.”

“And if we don't?” Kate asked.

“We drag it out a little longer, Kate, by not much more than thirty days extra; then everyone will be dead by winter.”

No one spoke.

“Malthus is finally being proven right,” Charlie said. “Our population here is three, four times higher than the carrying capacity. It was all about infrastructure. Out in Southern California right now I bet hundreds of thousands of tons of vegetables are rotting. The Midwest will be up to their eyeballs in unpicked corn in another six weeks. But there is no way to get that from there to here.”

Silence, and John knew all were dwelling on food, the standard thoughts of someone going into starving and malnutrition. He could picture the hundreds of thousands of head of cattle out in Texas and Oklahoma. For that matter, just two hundred miles east of here, the hog farms. They were contemptible, usually rammed into poorer communities, five to ten thousand hogs raised at a clip in sheds where they could barely move from birth until slaughter, the stench and pollution killing property value for miles around . . . and to have one of them here now would be greeted with people falling on their knees and thanking God.

But even then, John realized, it wouldn't work. The farms were dependent on hundreds of tons of feed being shipped in each week. If those farms had not already been looted, the waste going on was most likely beyond imagining. The animals starving to death, people who almost thought meat was grown inside a pink foam package now trying to chase a hog down, kill it, and dress it. No, they'd cut off what they could, others would join in like vultures, and half of it would then just rot in the sun. If the hogs escaped, they would be into the woods now, wild boar in short order and damn dangerous.

Charlie finally stirred.

“Anything else?”

Silence.

“Minor point, but it's starting to get dangerous. Dogs.”

John looked over at him.

“A lot of dogs are starting to run loose now. They're starving and they're going wild. We had an incident up on Fifth Street last night; two children got cornered by a pack of dogs. Fortunately, the father had a shotgun and dropped several of them; the rest took off.”

After the grimness of the previous conversation John knew he shouldn't be reacting so hard, but he suddenly felt a tightness in his throat. The two fools Zach and Ginger were indeed getting hungry, begging ferociously at every meal, and yet still the family would share a few
scraps. Most of the squirrels John had dropped over the last week had been tossed to the dogs raw.

“I think we have to order the shooting of all dogs in the town,” Charlie said.

“No, damn it, no,” Tom snapped. “I'll burn in hell before I'd go home and in front of my kids take Rags outside and blow his brains out. No way. If they're running loose and proving to be a danger, sure, but not that.”

“What did the father do with the bodies of the dogs he shot?” Kellor asked quietly.

“Jesus, I never thought of that,” Charlie replied.

“How many dogs in this town?” Kellor asked. “At least a couple of thousand. That's enough meat for full rations for three or four days at least, half rations for a week and a half.”

“You can go straight to hell, Doc!” Tom shouted, and John was surprised to see tears in Tom's eyes. For the first time since this crisis had started, from the initial panic, the executions, the fight at the gap, it was now Tom who was breaking into tears.

“We got Rags the week my youngest was born. He's been with us ten years, as much a part of the family as any person. He'd die to defend us, and frankly, I'd do the same for him. I'm not giving him up and that's final.”

“Tom, what I was talking about earlier,” Kellor said, “that's only the first starve-off. I didn't even have the heart to talk about the second starve-off. Those that survive into the fall, chances are by the end of the winter most will be dead anyhow. Do you think any dogs will still be alive by then? And if so, they'll be feral, reverting back to packs of wolves, killing people to survive.”

“Help will be here long before then!” Tom shouted. “It's starting already; you heard what John said.

“Charlie, I don't care what the hell you order, I will not do it to Rags or any other dog that the owners are still taking care of.”

Tom was red faced, in John's eyes almost like a boy in a sentimental movie about a dog or other beloved pet, the obligatory scene when the kid is about to lose the dog, but we all know that at the end of the film, except in
Old Yeller
and
The Yearling
, things will be OK. And as for those two films, John had seen both as a kid and refused to ever see them again.