One Second After (35 page)

“Carol, please don't,” John said. “Don't do this to yourself. Please don't.”

She broke down sobbing.

“Don't do this to myself?” she cried, her voice rising to near hysteria.

“Offer you a piece to stay alive? Three nights ago I was raped. Raped by four men who said they had some food hidden in a shack. I half-expected it but was so damn hungry I no longer cared. Do you hear that?”

“I'm sorry.”

She sobbed.

“And they gave me a bowl of watery soup in the morning, one of them did, and I felt it was damn near worth the trade. Please, Colonel, I'll spend the night with you if you let me stay and just give me a little something to eat.”

And then she just stepped forward, heading towards the median barrier.

“I'll shoot!” the student guard screamed.

John held his hands out appealingly, looking towards his student.

“Don't!”

The rifle went off, Carol screaming, ducking down, the other refugees flinging themselves to the pavement.

Either the guard had fired high or in her nervousness had missed. But the girl was already working the bolt, the ejected shell casing ringing loudly as it hit the pavement.

“Next one is to the head!” the student was screaming.

“Carol, don't move!”

He started to move towards the median barrier, the hell with the quarantine.

“Colonel, don't!”

It was Washington Parker, running up, Colt .45 drawn, but something now seemed to tell him to holster his pistol, the sight of it ready to trigger a panic.

He stepped in front of the student.

“Point that gun straight up please,” he said calmly, and she obeyed.

Next he turned towards the refugees.

“A mistake, people, nothing more. Please keep moving. There's plenty of fresh water at Exit 64, you can rest a bit and wash up there.”

He pointed to the family with the children in the shopping cart.

“I bet your little ones need a bath. It's just around the bend in the road. But you must stay in the center of the road.”

They started to get to their feet and moved back towards the white stripe dividing the two lanes.

Washington approached Carol, but not too closely.

“Ma'am, please stand up. No one will hurt you if you please stand up and back away from the median barrier.”

“Do as he says, Carol,” John interjected.

Shaking, she stood up.

John looked at her, and it was as if she was a different person. That the final shreds of pride, of decency, within her had disintegrated. A woman who but six weeks back most likely had a corner office, a parking slot with her name on it, a liberal expense account, and a damn good stock option had just tried to sell her body for a place to rest for a night and a bowl of soup.

“Carol, are you all right?”

She said nothing, features almost blank, turned, and fell back into the line of refugees.

Something told him with grim certainty she would not live much longer, shattered to the point that a razor blade across the wrists would be
a welcomed relief. He was tempted to call her back and he stepped over the median barrier and actually took a step towards her.

“Colonel, sir.”

He looked back. It was Washington, shaking his head no.

Washington turned back on the student who had fired the shot.

“Was that a warning shot or were you aiming at her?” Washington said.

“I'm not sure,” and her voice was near breaking.

“You were wrong on two counts,” Washington snapped, and the girl was now at attention, trembling. “That woman had not yet tried to go over the barrier. Your orders are only to shoot if they go over the barrier or try to turn on you.”

“She was getting close to Professor Mather—I mean the colonel, sir.”

“I am not sir; I am Sergeant Parker. Remember your orders and abide by them. Now the second count. Was that a warning shot or not? Remember I told all of you I am the only one to give a warning shot. If you shoot, then do it to kill. A warning shot is a wasted bullet, and we've got precious few of them.”

“I think I aimed at her.”

Washington snatched the gun from the girl.

“Go back up to the barrier; you can help interview the refugees. I'm sending someone who has the guts to aim right to your place.”

The girl, crestfallen, turned and walked away, her shoulders beginning to shake.

Parker shouted for one of the boys by the barrier to walk escort with refugees and John came up to his side.

“A bit hard perhaps?” Washington asked.

John shook his head.

“I've told my girls repeatedly, if you are going to shoot, shoot to kill. But that pathetic woman did not deserve to be shot at.”

“I know,” Washington sighed. “What did she do? Offer to sleep with you?”

“Yes.”

“I get it twenty times a day, and it's not because I'm good-looking,” Washington said, his attempt at a joke falling flat.

“Sick. I'm hearing more and more stories up here about rape, murder, stealing even of baby formula. It's getting desperate on the road. You were going to offer to let her stay, weren't you?”

“Yeah. You could see it. She's far over the edge. I think she'll be dead in a few more days.”

The two looked towards Carol, who was at the back of the column, staggering along.

Washington sighed.

“Yeah, God save her. You're right. You can look at these people and tell who still just might pull through. Poor woman, she's not one of them. No place in this world for her now, and what she has left to sell is fading.”

John lowered his head.

“Damn all this,” he sighed.

“I'm now seeing hundreds like her every day,” Washington said wearily. “Sir, we let one in beyond those that can help us all survive, we break down.”

He couldn't reply. He thought of the piece of a candy bar in his car, a survival ration if he got stuck. He was half-tempted to go get it, but if he did, it might not be there for Jennifer when she needed it.

“Maybe she'll get lucky,” Washington said. “Maybe some guy farther down the road will take her in.”

“God save us if we are really at this point already.”

“Sir. I saw it in Nam. Hell, nineteen-year-old GIs thought it was heaven. A piece for a couple of bucks? But you looked at those girls, and I tell you southern Asian girls are some of the most beautiful in the world, and it made you sick. Fifteen-year-old kids that should have been in school, out selling their tail to feed their parents and kid sisters and brothers.

“And now it's come to America. . . .”

Washington shook his head.

“Damn all war . . . ,” he sighed.

“You wanted me down here for something?”

“Some bad rumors starting to come in this morning; I think Charlie needs to know. I'm going to head back into town shortly to tell him.”

“What is it?”

“Refugees are talking about something called the Posse taking over the interstate. They're down in the Charlotte area. Some said they're moving up Interstate 77 towards Statesville. Have a lot of vehicles that run.”

“The Posse? Hell, it sounds like the Wild West.”

“No. It's worse. The Posse was a name for a pre-war gang with branches all around the country. Punks, gangbangers who would pop a
bullet into someone's head as a joke before this even started, drug dealers, the scum of the earth long before we ever got hit and the ones most ruthless to survive now than our worst nightmares have become real.”

John realized just how really isolated their small town was. Several years back the Asheville paper had run a couple of articles about gang activity starting to flare up, but the local police had put it down fast.

“The Posse. One poor woman we let through with the last bunch said she was held prisoner by them for several days and escaped. Don't even want to talk about what they did to her, but it was beyond sick. Everyone's talking about it on the other side of the barrier. Sort of like an urban legend running with the refugee bands on the road. Some say a thousand or more and well armed. They're moving like ancient barbarians out there.”

“Damn,” John sighed, and yet again movie images, the Road Warrior films and all the cheap imitations of the genre back in the 1980s and early 1990s.

“I think we better start getting more vigilant. Just a gut feeling if this is real, they'll finally head our way. They'll figure Asheville, up in the mountains, must be loaded with food, and may be a good place for them to take over and hole up. They'll follow the trail of refugees and wind up here,” Washington said.

“I heard a radio broadcast,” John said.

“You mean Voice of America?” Washington replied.

“How did you know?”

“I was sitting up here last night, keeping an eye on things. The radio in that beautiful Mustang still works. Damn, I just turned it on. Sitting in an old Mustang, it was almost flashback time. Half-expected to hear Wolfman Jack or Cousin Brucie.”

John chuckled.

“Yeah.”

“And loud and clear had the signal for about an hour or so. Just wish they'd knock off the patriotic stuff, play some old R & B or rock. Yeah, I heard it.”

“What do you think?”

“It's propaganda for morale, nothing more. Maybe the news about the coastal towns is on the mark, but for the rest of us, today, next week, it's bullshit. We got to look out for ourselves. I'm passing word at the barrier
for people to turn around, to start heading for the coast. I know that's insane, none have the strength to make it now, but maybe it will be a counterrumor that will work back down the line.”

John nodded.

“Downside, though,” John said. “If the rumor hits that Posse crowd, that will move them up our way even faster. Under martial law every one of those bastards will be shot; the last thing they want now is any authority anywhere. We better work out a good tactical plan to defend this place against a serious attack right now and stop thinking about mob control or a few desperados trying to sneak in. If they have any ex-military types at all with them, they'll do a probe first, then hit us hard. We got to keep an eye on our back doors, the railroad tunnel and the old back roads down to Old Fort. We're no longer dealing with refugees; we'll be facing an army as ruthless as anything in history.”

Washington nodded in agreement.

“I think I'll go home,” John said.

The two shook hands and John went back up the slope by the bridge. He nodded to Brett concealed in the grass.

“Fran got a bit jumpy there. Glad she didn't shoot that woman.”

“Same here,” though John wondered if a bullet in her head might have been an act of mercy.

He got in the Edsel and headed for home.

As he pulled into the drive, the two fools Ginger and Zach came off the deck to greet him. He knelt down to pet both and found himself hugging them.

“Daddy!”

It was Jennifer, Pat with her.

“Everything OK?”

“Sure, Daddy.”

He looked at Jennifer closely. She had lost a few pounds. At every meal Jen had been pushing as much food into her as possible, meat and vegetables, which right now were still boiled dandelions. He looked up at the orchard. If only the trees were peach trees; in another several weeks they could start to gather the peaches. The apples were growing, but far too slow, it seemed.

He had never had any real interest in the eight trees, other than their beauty in the spring. The apples were rather sour in the fall, and they
usually just left the fruit there to drop, delighted when the apples lured in bears to feed on them.

“She had to eat a little chocolate earlier,” Pat said. “Blood sugar went down.”

“Snitch,” Jennifer snapped.

“I promised your dad I'd keep an eye on you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

He hugged both of them, the two arguing as he went into the house.

Jen was half-asleep, book laid across her chest, an old book on the Civil War.

“Where's Elizabeth?”

“Oh, she and Ben went out for a walk,” Jen said, and sat up, rubbing her eyes.

“They're out there walking a lot these days,” John said.

“Well, Son-in-law, you better sit down.”

“Why?”

“I think you need to talk to the two of them.”

“About what?”

“Sex, getting pregnant.”

“Oh, damn, Jen, not now, not today, I don't even want to think about it in relationship to her.”

“Few fathers do. But frankly, my son-in-law, I think your sixteen-year-old daughter is now, how shall we say, a woman.”

“Jesus, don't even talk to me about this now.”

“Tyler and I had you and Mary figured out rather quickly.”

He blushed. Jen had never said that before. And he looked over at her.

“Almost to the day, I bet. At least I did. Tyler, like any dad, went totally blind to reality, and John, I see it in your daughter now.”

“Jen, not now,” he sighed. “There's so damn much else going on.”

Jen nodded slowly.

“And you don't want to face this issue. OK, but you better face up to it, John. Those two are scared, don't see much of a future ahead, the old restraints fall away. I'm old enough to remember the Second World War; it was the same then. Eighteen-year-old kids who knew each other just a couple days or weeks would figure ‘what the hell' and either marry on the spot or have to get married within a few months. Our ‘Greatest Generation' stuff tends to make us forget just how young and scared they were
back then. So face up to the reality, dear son-in-law. You're the history professor; you know what happens inside kids when there's a war on.”

Too much was happening today. He stood up, peeked into Jennifer's room. She and Pat were playing a game with Jennifer's Pokemon cards.

Her skin color looked off, a bit yellowish, pale.