One Year After: A Novel (5 page)

Ahead was the barrier his community had set up just beyond the Exit 59 turnoff. The sight of it refocused him on the reason for a noonday drive along an empty interstate highway.

He had called the new federal administrator in Asheville, Dale Fredericks, as he had promised Ernie and the gathering in front of the post office, and when told that the administrator was busy but could see him later in the week, John had offered a few choice words to the unidentified assistant and said he would arrive at noon and hung up. The game of bureaucrats, a game he knew well from his time serving in the Pentagon, had attuned him to how power was played—and to wait hat in hand for a callback was an admission of subservience. Beyond that, he had promised the community he would have some answers by evening, and to tell everyone to wait would definitely not play well at all.

John looked to the backseat of the Edsel. Ed, Black Mountain’s chief of police, was riding on the left side with a sawed-off twelve gauge, and one of his students from the college, Grace Freeman, was on the right side with a well-tended, carefully maintained M4. Her intelligent, attractive look belied the fact that she came from a family that had worked in the security business and that she had grown up around firearms, knew how to use them, and had a good grasp of tactics and the ability to think under stress. She had thus risen to senior student in command of the company of troops fielded by the college.

Once clear of the security barrier, the fifteen-mile drive to Asheville would be a journey into no-man’s-land, and the old Edsel could be a tempting snatch and grab for some, even now. A month earlier, the Quentin family had embarked on their twice-monthly bartering run to Asheville; it was rumored that they had some hidden fields of corn up on the far side of Route 9 and were running moonshine. They had never come back. Speculation was that a band of the border reivers—though others said it was a gang out of Asheville—had snatched the lot of them. Jim Quentin’s bullet-ridden body was found in a ditch by the highway three days later, the searchers drawn to where he lay by the buzzards wheeling overhead.

Makala slowed and waved to their security team guarding the highway barrier, nearly coming to a complete stop so John could shout that they were heading into Asheville and would be back by late afternoon. That was standard procedure: let the border guards know your expected return time, and if you did not show up, a search operation would be mounted. They were waved through, and the gate closed.

Ed perked up once beyond the Swannanoa gate, his gaze scanning the side of the road, and John eased his Glock 21 out of its holster and cradled it in his lap. He kept the lightweight Ruger for when he walked about town, but beyond town, he wanted a .45 loaded and ready. The road ahead was cleared, though scores of abandoned cars still littered the shoulder of the highway, nearly all of them looted of their tires, gas tanks pumped out, oil drained from engine blocks, and some of his own crews now scavenging the wiring from alternators. Medieval Romans tore up finished stones from the roadways, aqueducts, coliseums, and monuments of their ancient ancestors; modern Americans looted abandoned cars.

Makala sighed and nodded toward a dust-coated BMW, identical to the one she had abandoned by Exit 65 and was now a burned-out wreck from the battle with the Posse. Every time they drove past it, her commentary was nearly the same. “Maybe someday we can get that one towed back home.” She sighed wistfully. “Rewire it, find some treads, some premium gas, and go for a drive again.”

He chuckled, glad for the diversion.

“How about cranking up some Emerson, Lake & Palmer on the sound system while we drive?”

She laughed. “I keep forgetting, dear husband, you’re from another generation. That is old folks’ music. Give me some Meat Loaf.”

Ed sighed, muttering a rude comment under his breath at that; he was strictly country music. Grace, eyes still glued watchfully to the side of the road, asked what in the world they were talking about, having heard of none of the performers.

“Never did get to take you out to a nice dinner at the Grove Park,” John replied wistfully. “Their Friday-night buffet of seafood—all the snow crab legs you could eat.”

“Champagne,
real
champagne. I’ll dress up in a skirt and four-inch heels so I can see you eye to eye.”

More groans erupted from the sixty-five-year-old police chief and the twenty-one-year-old student who was deadly at six hundred yards with a scoped, bolt-action rifle.

He let his hand slip out of Makala’s grasp as they drove on. If anything happened, she’d have to maneuver quickly with both hands on the wheel. Makala slowed for a moment, pointing out someone on the overpass for the old parkway, and then speeding up, John watching carefully for any threatening move. The location was a good one for an ambush since the road narrowed as it went through a defile, with a blind corner just beyond where a barrier line could be hastily erected. The person on the bridge wisely held up both hands as a peaceful gesture that at least he had no weapon, and then he actually waved. It seemed friendly, but it could also be a signal to an ambush waiting around the bend.

Ed and Grace were tense in the backseat. John chambered a round into his Glock and now had a reserve clip out and on the car seat beside him. Makala was ready with both hands on the wheel. They cleared the bridge and continued on to the turnoff into Asheville where the road widened. All four gave inward sighs of relief as they slowed for the entry barrier to Asheville set up at the intersection of Interstates 40 and 240. They showed identification at the city barrier line and then were waved through. John recognized one of the men guarding the approach: it was the friendly cop he had met long ago on his first visit to Asheville after the Day. There was even an exchange of pleasantries, and then Makala drove on, exiting at Charlotte Street and finally arriving in front of the old courthouse complex.

The complex was made up of three buildings—the county office, a rather ugly and imposing fifteen-story structure; a smaller city office to the south side of the complex, which was an elegant building of art deco design; and a fortresslike, foreboding county prison downslope and behind the two buildings.

John felt an instinctive chill even as they parked and got out. When the army occupied this place, the sight of young men and women in traditional U.S. Army uniforms had been a comforting sight for him. That had once been his world. The uniforms were different now.

On the steps of the county office were two guards wearing flak jackets, and one of them stepped forward, an M4 carbine half raised. “Identification. And no weapons allowed in the building.”

John had cleared the chambered round out of his Glock and holstered his weapon before getting out of the car. The sharp command uttered by the guard made him hesitate. Carrying in the open had become very much the norm in the two years after the Day, and the tone of the guard set him off. Ed and Grace were falling in behind him, their weapons slung casually over their shoulders.

Makala stepped forward in front of John.

“Here’s my ID.” She held up her old North Carolina driver’s license. “John, why don’t you put your pistol back in the car? Ed and Grace, how about waiting for us there?”

She handled it smoothly, as she always did, and rather than react as tempted, John carefully pulled his pistol out, handed it over to Ed, and reached for his own wallet.

“Ma’am, this ID has lapsed and is therefore not valid.”

John actually started to chuckle at the absurdity of the guard’s comment. “Should we go down to the North Carolina DMV and get a new one right now? We definitely don’t want her to get a ticket for driving.”

He meant it as a joke, but the officious guard did not take it that way. It was the type of response that had always set John off.

“I’d prefer to see some current federal identification, such as your ration card.”

“Didn’t think to bring it,” she replied smoothly, stepping a bit closer to cut John off from a far angrier response. She then gave an innocent smile. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that was now required.”

“I’m John Matherson of Black Mountain, here to see Dale Fredericks,” John announced coldly, coming up to his wife’s side. “And this is my old military ID as a colonel in the United States Army. I assume that will vouch for me.” He shifted into his well-trained command voice.

“Whom do you wish to see?”

John bristled up. “I just told you—Dale Fredericks. I wasn’t aware that I had to be announced.”

“You mean the director of Carolina District Eleven,” the guard replied.

“I wasn’t aware I had to address him by his formal title.”

“Sir, I’m following my orders, and henceforth, proper titles are to be used.”

John glanced down at the guard’s sleeve. “All right, Sergeant, then I am Colonel John Matherson of the United States Army Reserve. You will address me as
sir
and inform whomever it is that put you out here that I am here to see Dale Fredericks.”

“Wait here.” There was a hesitation on the guard’s part. “Sir,” he finally added in.

He jogged back into the building, the other guard just standing silent, blocking their way and not making eye contact with either of them.

A moment later, his interrogator was at the doorway and gestured for them to climb the steps and come in. John slowed as he approached and flashed an angry glance at the guard. “Sergeant, I’ll let it pass this time, but in the future, you not only address me as
sir
, you salute my rank when I inform you who I am and show proper identification, and you do not wave me about as a traffic cop. You could have walked back down the few steps to tell me to come in, which I would have done anyhow. Do I make myself clear?”

The guard was silent.

“Do I make myself clear, Sergeant?” John snapped.

There was a muttered “Yes, sir,” and John opened the door on his own and held it for Makala to go in first.

“That last bit wasn’t necessary, John,” she whispered.

“Hell yes it was,” he replied, following her into the courthouse, and as he stepped within, he came to a sudden stop.

The interior was lit …
with electric lights
. The county courthouse had an open foyer that rose several stories, the upper floors facing the foyer cordoned off with ornate iron balcony railings that had a heavy, oppressive look, almost like the bars of a cell. Though no critic of architecture, John always felt that the 1920s-era building had a bit of a Stalinist-era feel to it when compared to the far more attractive county offices next to it. The half dozen fluorescent lights illuminating the foyer fluttered slightly as if the electrical current was not constant.

Of course, it was not the first time he had seen electric lighting since the Day. Mission Hospital had brought a generator online, which, when powered up, provided electricity for two operating rooms and an adjoining ICU established on the first floor next to the emergency room. A number of private and even some older industrial generators had survived the attack, but it was now, after two years, a question of fuel to run them. The vast majority of families that had tried to think ahead long before the Day and had put in backup power had been thinking in terms of days or weeks at most. The ones with ten to twenty gallons of gas on hand had run out within the first week. A couple of families in Black Mountain, such as the Franklins, had kept mum about their thousand-gallon propane tanks, but even those went dry after the bitterness of the previous winter.

The army had left a couple of generators behind, and it was now obvious where one of them was in use, and the sight of it set John on edge given how much fuel was being used just to provide lighting. For a moment, he stood there wondering if he was feeling the cooling touch of air-conditioning, as well.

“John Matherson of Black Mountain?”

John felt a bit embarrassed; he had actually been standing there as if he were a gape-mouthed tourist, gazing up at the electric lights. He caught sight of the man he assumed was Dale Fredericks coming out of his office, located on the ground floor of the courthouse. There was a friendly enough smile as the man approached, hand extended, which John took, and there was a firm enough handshake. Dale stood half a foot shorter than John, light, sandy hair worn a bit long and combed across his forehead to cover the fact that his hairline was receding. He was wearing a blue jacket, standard light-blue shirt, and red tie, the way most professionals dressed before everything had gone down. John didn’t know if the man’s clothes were setting him off or if they were actually a touch of reassurance that somehow, in some ways, things were coming back to normal. It made John awkwardly aware of his own well-worn dress shirt, collar frayed and permanently darkened from sweat, his jeans and hiking boots both a bit the worse for wear, as well.

Dale’s face was round, again a strange sight in a way for the survivors of what they now called the starving times, which had left a permanent mark on all who had survived it. Perhaps the only positive thing that could be said of those days was that the American slide into near universal obesity had finally come to a stop. Something else caught John’s attention. The man was freshly showered and shaved, a fact that made John feel suddenly out of place.

Dale’s pale gray eyes darted to Makala. His smile broadened slightly, and he offered his hand, which Makala took firmly, introducing herself.

“I assume this is Mrs. Matherson. My assistant told me you were coming.”

“It’s Makala Turner Matherson,” she replied, her smile as broad as his. “Director of public health and safety for our community. And I assume you are Dale Fredericks.”

There was a slight flicker of a frown from Dale, and then he regained instant composure over his faux pas. “Oh, sorry; I did not properly introduce myself. Yes, I am Dale Fredericks.”

She gave a sidelong glance to John as if nudging him. Though he felt comfortable with all of the aspects of his jobs as a colonel, a college professor, and the one who took on the role of near dictator operating under martial law during the darkest days of the crisis, there were nuances of the games of diplomacy at which he knew Makala was superior, and he caught it now as if she were saying,
Don’t let the fact that the guy is clean and well dressed put us off.