Red the First (7 page)

Ollie Morningside arrived on the scene.
He came from a long line of farmers and everybody called him Farmer
Morningside, a name he didn’t seem to mind. He had became an
important resource and teacher since the plague. When he saw what
had happened, his hands went to his temples. “Sweet Jesus in
heaven, Keith, how many times did I tell you to use the lift, not
the scoop!”

“
I’m sorry…” the injured man
said weakly.

“
I was afraid something like
this might happen,” Farmer Morningside nervously rolled up his
baseball cap in his hands, his voice softening. “I told him to use
the forklift.” He rubbed his head. “The forklift. Yeah, yeah,
that’s what we need, the forklift.” He motioned for another man to
follow him. The two of them ran in the direction of the barn, where
the forklift was housed. It would take at least twenty minutes for
them to get there, fuel it up, and drive it back.

“
He doesn’t have that long,”
Doc said, shaking his head grimly.

Blanche Erpelding paced near the
accident scene. A normally vivacious teenager with cheerful green
eyes, her face twisted with empathetic agony until she could take
his pain no longer. Standing several paces away from the carnage,
she lifted her hands with a weightlifter grunt. The bale rose off
the tractor all by itself, astonishing the onlookers. The higher
she lifted her arms, the higher the bale went. Her face strained
until it reddened like a cherry. The bale hovered two feet above
Keith’s broken body until she made a motion like tossing a bag of
potatoes across a room. The huge bale landed safely away from the
injured man.

Everyone rushed to the victim, except
Blanche, who collapsed to one knee, panting heavily. Despite Dr.
Patel’s best efforts, Keith died before the two men had returned
with the forklift, but the truth had become undeniable. Certain
individuals in the community had acquired unique abilities never
before seen among human beings.

Up until Blanche’s heroic feat, others
had been afraid to reveal their blossoming skills. Jerome, for
instance, had infrared vision, but one of the most exciting gifts
belonged to Nate. As long as he was touching the ground with part
of his body, or touching an object that was touching the ground, he
could generate electricity. He was able to power small motors by
holding a plug in his closed fist.

The gift that concerned Red the most
was Elizabeth’s. Come to find out she could read minds. The way he
could never get anything past her, he shouldn’t have been
surprised, but he felt duped. How could she have hidden something
like that from him for so long? Angry, he went off to live with the
priest, Father Bob Bob. Red wasn’t Catholic, but the day Father Bob
arrived in town with a load of books and fishing equipment, their
personalities simply clicked.

“
God gives what He gives to
Whom He chooses, “ Father Bob counseled. “Your wife didn’t ask for
this gift any more than you asked for yours. True love comes
without conditions.”

After talking it over Father Bob for
several days, Red returned to Elizabeth and Michael. Elizabeth told
him not to worry, his mind was pretty boring anyway, and she rarely
went there on purpose, but sometimes she slid in by accident. None
of it made any sense to Red, but he’d just have to trust her.
Considering how strongly and negatively Red, who loved her, reacted
to her mind-reading skills, she decided it was best to keep it a
secret from those outside the family.

Life went on. The town continued to
expand and the sense of community grew even stronger.

At the Christmas party that winter,
Nate sent the town into hysterics when he lit the Christmas tree by
inserting the prongs of the cord into his nostrils. Later, he
powered an old CD player, causing the party-goers to weep with
nostalgia as the heavenly sounds of
Silent Night
wafted
through the barn.

That spring, the village residents
discussed the strange new abilities that some of the people in the
as yet unnamed community had been developing since the plague.
After discussing it at some length during a town hall meeting one
rainy day in April, they realized that it was only those who had
contracted the plague but recovered from it who had developed the
strange talents. Those few who had no talents had never gotten sick
from the epidemic.

Doc’s theory was that the virus had
somehow pushed their bodies into the next stage of evolution.
Father Bob had a different slant, saying that the gifts were proof
that God still loved his children, and that he had endowed certain
ones with special abilities to ensure humanity’s survival. The town
seemed divided, but Red remained silent on the matter. There were
more practical matters to worry about at the moment.

A committee was formed to help with
village planning. The doctor’s pharmacy and consulting office would
sit at the center alongside the general store. The library would
sit across the street; they didn’t have many books, much less a
circulation system, but everyone contributed what they had, and
there were several expeditions to surviving libraries and stores in
neighboring communities for more books. One of the women, who’d
been an elementary school teacher before the plague, began to
organize a school, dragooning several of the other adults who’d had
some expertise in various subjects to serve as teachers. The older
kids didn’t grumble, seeming eager for the return of normalcy. The
younger children thought the post-plague world
was
normalcy,
and got excited about the novelty of “school”, something they had
never known. Red decided it was easier that way. It’s hard to miss
what you never had.

A dozen people were chosen to journey
into the countryside in search of more livestock. Cows, goats,
sheep, chickens and even a herd of timid alpaca guarded by a pair
of vicious llamas who gave even Zena a run for her money. One older
house, probably built before the turn of the last century, held a
treasure trove of hand tools the likes of which only a few of the
older villagers were able to recognize. Who knew what a Yankee
drill was in this day and age of power screwdrivers?

Coyotes thrived in the area these days.
Deer had become bold, especially the bucks in mating season.
Someone had even spotted a bear with a cub. Dogs were no longer
just pets, but a necessity of life. They warned of danger and also
served as protection. Although Zena still deferred to Red as her
master and slept at his feet, she thought Michael and his little
friends were more interesting. She spent most of her days
frolicking with the kids around the village.

Veronica settled on the edge of town.
Her three hens and rooster had turned into sixteen, then
sixty-four, and now three years later, she had a considerable
flock. She married a man named Elwood, who had drifted into town
during a snowstorm. Carpentry was his new trade, but he wasn’t very
good at it. One day Red went to him for a new ax handle. Chatting
idly as he turned the handle on his lathe, Elwood revealed that he
had been the vice-president of a bank before the plague.

“
Well,” Red teased. “That
explains why everything you build falls apart.”

Elwood’s back stiffened. “Make your own
damn ax handles from here on in, Mister So-clever-about-fixing
things.”

Geez, Red thought, some people can’t
take a joke. After that, Elwood turned up his nose every time they
met. What an asshole, but at least Veronica remained
friendly.

Father Bob conducted a June wedding for
Red and Elizabeth. They adopted Michael in August, trying to make
it legal by having one of the other villagers draw up a
‘certificate of adoption’, signed by Red and Elizabeth and
witnessed by Doctor Patel and Veronic, at least officially.
Unofficially, the entire village had shown up, both for the wedding
and the adoption, bringing what passed for casseroles and
‘hotdishes’ in this strange new world. And a cake shared by all,
using refined sugar scavenged from a supermarket in a larger town
ten miles off.

Before the adoption ceremony, the boy
had carefully broached a subject heavy on his mind. He nervously
explained to them that he wanted to be their son, but in honor of
his first family, he wanted to keep his last name. Red and
Elizabeth said that would be fine.

After Red and Elizabeth adopted Michael
according to what passed for a legal process in this strange new
world, the idea spread like wildfire. Other orphaned children had
been discovered, and there was no shortage of adults vying to adopt
them, having lost their own children to the plague just as Red and
Elizabeth had done. Many couples formed in the same way the
Wakelands had, first out of necessity to provide a stable home
under unstable circumstances, and the love part came later. Things
would never return to pre-plague normality, but the survivors
wanted to return to a sense of civilization.

Red’s vision, in a way, had started
unfolding. He settled into his new life. But he still kept his eyes
open for the appearance of the man from his reoccurring dream, the
one with black hair, gray eyes, and a star-shaped
birthmark.

Family and neighbors became the center
of life in this new land without the technology and industry of the
pre-plague world. It wasn’t all bad. Red felt more pride in working
with his hands, living in his tiny cottage, than he had ever felt
during his stint as a respected businessman living in his
mini-mansion on the good side of town. He missed hot showers, the
Cleveland Indians, and especially his old family, always would, but
living with Elizabeth and Michael in simplicity had given life a
sweetness he’d never thought possible.

A seemingly disproportionate number of
educated people had been called by a mysterious force to live in
this community of survivors. The town had engineers, doctors,
scientists, nurses and professors coming out of the whazoo. It was
like living in a sheltered cocoon where the violence of the
surrounding world didn’t penetrate. That wasn’t to say the town
didn’t have its share of trouble.

One evening, a gang of thugs invaded
Veronica and Elwood’s homestead. Sensing trouble afoot, Red and the
other villagers broke down all of the doors at once, pulled the
hostages to safety, and hit the thugs with so much firepower they
splattered over the walls like extra chunky salsa. The incident
reminded everyone to keep up their guard.

As everyone adjusted to his or her new
existence, and life became less a struggle and more of a routine,
it was decided that this place, which had given them a second
chance at life, needed a name and a government. Red didn’t run for
office, so he wasn’t happy when his name showed up on the ballot
for mayor. He almost turned down the position when he won the
election, but Elizabeth talked him into taking it.

First on the
To Do List
was to
name their new town. It was a tossup between Second Chanceville and
Here We Go Again. The latter was entered as a joke, but it won by
two votes. Red thought it was the stupidest name ever. A lot of
people felt that way and the name was shortened to Hewego. Red
thought it sounded Indian, so he approved of the change. After all,
he was part Apache.

Five miles north, another town formed
and named itself Last Haven. The two towns regularly interacted and
it seemed civilization was on the upswing. Another year passed and
the town continued to flourish. People struggled to master farming
and skilled crafts. Despite many adversities, or perhaps because of
them, they had grown into a tight-knit community where people
helped each other without question.

Chapter 10

By late May, four years post-plague,
the town had finished its gravity-fed system of interconnected
wells. It had taken a year of planning, and a lake full of sweat
equity, but now all the occupied homes had running water. A big
celebration was held in the old barn, which now served as the
branch library. A generator was brought in for the occasion.
Big-band music played in the background, and a DVD player and big
screen television were set up in the back room for the
children.

Red had just finished enjoying a whisky
sour, compliments of the chemist’s new still, with some of the guys
when Elizabeth and some of the other women descended upon them,
dragging them out to the center of the floor for a dance. Glen
Miller’s
String of Pearls
echoed off the high ceiling as
they swayed past aisles of books.

When he saw Nate on the floor dancing
with Blanche, he gave him a secret thumbs up sign. Nate
grinned.

“
Ah,” Elizabeth said
wistfully. “Young love. They look good together.”

“
He’s been crushing on
Blanche a while now.”

“
I know,” Elizabeth
said.

“
Is it mutual?” Red
asked.

“
Blanche likes him, thinks
he’s cute, but she has reservations about making it more than a
friendship.”

“
I don’t have any
reservations,” Red said. “Let’s go home.” He whispered something
naughty in her ear about what he planned to do to her once they got
there.

“
Your mind is a dirty
place,” she said, giving him a playful tap on the head. “That’s why
I don’t like to go in there without a broom.”

“
C’mon, you like me that
way,” he said, pressing his body up against hers, feeling very much
in the mood.