Under a Broken Sun (21 page)

Ashley came out with a pale green T-shirt and jeans.  Her body had taken on a different shape since she announced her real age.  Like watching my little sis grow up.

“I need food,” she said.

“We’ll hit up a pharmacy or grocery store, see what’s left.  Take a look,” I said, pointing to the map I laid out on a check-out counter.  Ashley cocked her head to see.  “We’re here, Millersville.  Columbus is up here, middle of the state.  About a hundred miles or so.  We should be able to make it in about five days if we keep at twenty miles a day.  Think we can do that?”

She nodded.  I touched her head, the bandage now dirt covered and fraying.  “Your head’s ok?”

“Headaches, still.  But not too bad.  Need more aspirin.”  She lifted the bandage off. 

“Shoulder?  Lemme see.”  I turned her around.  Without protest she lifted up her shirt and I looked down at the scarring dots and the purple bruise that spread like a wall map.   “Looks good.”

She touched my arm.  “And you?”

“It’s healing.  No problems.”

She held my hand again.  “That’s not what I meant.  You’re not gonna do it again, right?”

I swallowed.  “Right.”

“Promise?”

A kid with those big blue eyes making you promise – that should be illegal.  It’s not playing fair.  “Yeah, I promise.”

She smiled.  “Good.  Let’s go.”

A short middle-aged man burst into the store, shouting “Maryann?”  He looked around.  Saw us.  “Sorry, you know where Maryann is?”

Shock and survival instincts prohibited us from saying anything.  I just shook my head ‘no’.  “She owns this place,” the guy went on.  “If you see her, tell her we got another one!  We’re gonna try him tonight.”

Got another what?

Tommy came out of the bathroom with a flush.  And a stink. 

Louie sifted through a small stack of used video games, throwing most of them away. 

Ashley grabbed two school backpacks.  “We’ll need these,” she said.  She tossed one to Tommy.

Tolbert was…nowhere.  “Where’s, Tolbert?” I asked. 

A crowd was gathering outside.  A mob.  Crying for an execution. 

“Shit,” I packed up the map and shot outside.

The crowd of about twenty people dragged an unconscious Tolbert across the street to the courthouse steps.  “Another one,” they shouted.  Some called for sanity.  Other called for hanging.  One guy stood up in front of them all.  “They did this!” he said, pointing to the burning warehouse, its fire diminished from yesterday.   “They’re all crazy, they want to destroy us!  Look at this place!  Because of them!”

They’re crazy?  Dude, you’re the one leading a mob.
  A mob that was going to kill Tolbert.

“Did anyone see him with the troops that came through here?” the guy yelled.  Several shouted ‘yes’. 

“Guilty?” He shouted again.  The crowd roared. 

“Wait!” I shouted.  I muscled my way through the group.  “This guy’s with us, but we’re not with the troops.  We’re following them.  We’re on your side.”

“How do we know that?” the guy asked me.  I made it up to the steps.  “He’s a soldier with the U.S. Army.  The real army, not this Army for God crap.  He saved our lives.”  I turned to the crowd.  “Not everyone in uniform is our enemy.  We need people like him.  Against those other people.” 

Ashley knelt down and cradled Tolbert’s head.  Blood trickled down the back of his head to his neck.  Ashley pulled some gauze out of her backpack.

The crowd settled down.  I kept going.  “What the hell happened here?  What happened to us?  Christ, have you all lost your mind?  We’re better than this.  We’re better than them.”

One older, barrel of a guy with crew top that he probably combed with sandpaper, came forward.  “What unit?” he said.

"What?"  I had no fucking clue where this guy was going.

“What unit was he with?” the guy repeated.

“First armored division, second platoon, Charlie Company,” Tommy said behind us.  He came forward from the crowd and looked right at Sergeant Slaughter with the grey flattop.  “Sniper support.  Served two tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan.  His dog tags are around his neck, his Big Red One patch is right here,” Tommy pointed to Tolbert’s patch on his arm.  A big, red, number one.  The old guy looked, grunted, and nodded at the leader of the horde.  The crowd milled away.

Tolbert came to.  “What happened?” he said.

I knelt beside him and looked into his eyes as they reflected the dusk’s fading light and the flames of the torches around us.  “You got mugged,” I said. 

His swollen eye searched or something, anything to make sense of this.   He reached for the back of his head.  The drill sergeant knelt down beside us, also inspecting Tolbert. 

“Where you folks from?” he asked.

“We came here from Philadelphia.  I’m Adam,” I said.

He held out his hand.  “Captain William Finnegan.  Retired.”  I introduced the others, explaining where we were headed as we lifted Tolbert up to a stand. 

Tolbert swayed a little with a “whoa”, holding his head.

“Easy there soldier.  You’ll be ok.”

Tolbert looked at Captain Bill, recognizing the tone.  “Yes, sir.  Who are you with, sir?”

“Were.  Screamin’ Eagles.  Desert Storm.  Let’s get you somewhere comfortable.”

We walked Tolbert down to a house past the smoldering warehouse.  “RPG did that,” Bill said nodding to the warehouse.  “Took out the whole side of it.  Some dumb-ass civvie thinking they’re playing with a toy rocket launcher.”

“FUBAR,” Tolbert said.

“Goddamn right,” Bill replied.  “Whole fuckin’ thing is FUBAR.”

“FUBAR?” Ashley asked.

“Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition,” Bill replied.

In front of us stood an old Victorian bed & breakfast called “The Northwinds”.  Bill led us up the stairs, with Tolbert's arms around his and my shoulders.  “This yours?” Tolbert said as we climbed the wooden steps. 

“My wife’s idea.  I wanted to open up a gun shop.  We compromised.  She got the B&B and I got to take folks out on hunting tours.”  He opened up the front door. 

Inside the house seemed in decent shape, relatively speaking.  I looked around and barely saw any cracks.  “The earthquake didn’t do much damage.”

“Nope.  Built this place myself.  Used a few tricks to keep it standing.  Fuckin’ nukes couldn’t take it down.”  He led Tolbert to a parlor immediately to the right and lied him down on a fancy antique couch.  Tolbert went back to sleep almost immediately.  “He'll be all right.  If he's seen action then he's seen worse.  C’mon, let’s get you some food.”

We followed him into the kitchen.  He lit a fire in a wood-burning stove and soon had water boiling.  He put on an apron, forcing an unstoppable, but muffled giggle from Louie and Tommy.  Bill looked at them sharply and shut them up faster than if he had smacked 'em shut himself.  He pulled out some vegetables and other items to make a soup.  I didn’t care if he pulled out garbage and boiled it, I needed hot food.

Soon the kitchen smelled of chicken broth and vegetables, a homemade chicken soup that made me, even for a moment, feel normal.  Like we were visiting neighbors.  Like the world outside hadn’t just gone to shit.  My stomach speeded past hunger and kicked into famished gear.

“Why Chicago?” Bill asked as he put bowls of hot soup in front of us.

I dug in, blowing away the heat but not really giving a fuck if it burned away the roof of my mouth.  The others did the same.  I had to remind myself he was talking to me.

“Oh.  My father’s there.  At least, I hope he is.  He may know what’s going on.”  I slurped up the soup. 

“You’re a long way away,” he said.  “Probably a good five-hundred miles.  Could take you all year.”

I nodded.  “I know, but we’re actually trying to get ahead of the troops that came by.  There’s gonna be a fight.”

“Already was,” Bill replied, nodding outside.  “You won’t get ahead of them.  They’re two days gone.”

“I thought this all happened yesterday,” Tommy said.

“That was the rear guard.  The main force came through two days ago.  Probably groups of thousands of people mobilizing all across America.  This troop only had about five hundred men, women and children.  But they were all armed, and fought hard.”

Ashley swallowed.  “Children?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bill said as he stood up to clean his mess.  “Children.  Some of them as young as four or five with a twenty-two almost as big as they are.  Probably just carrying it, but still.  You saw what happened to the warehouse.  These people don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”

“They’re crazy,” Louie said.

“They’re more than that,” Bill said, picking up my empty bowl.  “They’re organized and passionate.  They believe in what they’re doing.  They honestly believe this is Armageddon.  The last great fight the Bible tells about, clearing the path for the second coming.”

He took Ashley and Tommy’s bowl.  Louie took his own sweet time.  “Murder doesn’t seem very Christian, sir,” Tommy said.

“A lot of Christians agree with you.  Myself included.  But they don’t see it as murder.  This, whatever it is, has affected them so much they truly believe anyone who stands in their way isn’t human.”  He rinsed the bowls in the sink, saying, “I doubt they're the only ones.  People all over the globe trying to make sense of it.  Using religion as an explanation for this randomness.”

Tommy twisted his knife in his hand.  "FUBAR."

"The world got bigger," Bill sighed as he cleaned up the table.  "The bigger it got, the more separate we became.  You woulda thought it would be the opposite, but information came at us from so many different fronts we didn't know what to believe.  Truth vanished, and people who used to trust their elders, their 'representatives' started trusting blogs full of bullshit.  Pretty soon your next door neighbor became a source of lies and misinformation.  That's what feeds Hill's people.  They want to know the truth, but can't get it anywhere except from him.  They've forgotten how to ask questions."

“Did they say where they were going?”  I asked.

“Chicago.  Same as you.”

“But how – did they say how?  Like what route?’

“We didn’t get a chance to chat much,” Bill said.  He turned and leaned against the sink.  “Those of us with guns used ‘em.  Those without, well, they didn’t last long.  They took any children they could find.  Said they shouldn’t be raised this way, outside the Lord.”  He looked down to floor.  “Killed my wife, too.”

We fell silent.  So many people being killed, either by nature or man.

“Do you have any of those guns we could borrow?” I said softly.

Bill smiled.  “Oh yeah.”

We followed Bill down to his basement, to a locked room.  He took out his keys and unlocked the door.  Inside, walls of neatly organized display hangers held up every type of gun imaginable.  Automatics, shotguns, small uzis, handguns, everything. 

Louie’s eyes lit up in his little fourteen year old head.  “Whoa,” he whispered in reverence.  “You shoulda used these against the bad guys.”

“I did,” Bill replied.  He picked up an M-16, handing it to me.  “We’ll need more ammo.”

Tommy refused the shotgun, holding up his own.  Bill whistled in appreciation.  “An old  Garand.”

“E11 version,” Tommy said, smiling.  “My dad took great care of it.  Still packs a wallop.”

“I bet,” Bill said, handing it back to Tommy.  “Keep it close.  Saved quite a few butts in the great one.  Might save yours.  Here.”  He tossed Tommy a box of thirty caliber bullets.

We saved an AK-47 for Tolbert then loaded up clips and filled our backpacks with the ammo.  Bill handed an Uzi to Ashley:  short, snub-nosed, easy to fit in her small hand.  “You, um, do a lot of hunting with these?”  She asked.

Bill picked up another automatic that looked like my M-16.  “Didn’t used to,” he said, shoving a clip into the weapon.  “But I’m ready to start.”

For the next several hours Bill took us through the basics of handling guns.  Turns out we’d been doing it wrong the whole time.  Look down the site; never put your finger right on the trigger until you’re firing; put the butt against your shoulder; aim low, the gun kicks up. 

Tolbert, of course, didn’t need any lessons.  We let him sleep.

The five of us sat outside staring at the stars around a fire Bill had set up.  “You ever kill anyone?” Bill asked me. 

“Yeah.  A few,” I said.  I still had nightmares about it.  The Wheezer back at the WA-WA. 
No wait, that wasn’t me.  That was Marilyn
.  The guy in the woods?  No, that was Louie trying to turn life into a first-person shooter video game and Tommy saving my ass.  I guess there was only one.

“Just my dad,” Tommy said.  I looked up at him as he loaded up the Garand.  Tommy stared hard at me, saying, “He killed my dad.”

“You killed his dad?” Bill asked me.  I looked at Tommy.

Tommy nodded.  Bill didn’t ask anything further.  I'm glad he didn't go into it.  I feel bad for Tommy that he lost his dad, but I did what I had to do. 

Bill stood up.  “Sun’s coming up.  Time to get some shuteye.  Back inside.  We’ll leave at dusk.”

“We?” I said.

Bill collected up the guns.  “Yeah.  I’m coming too.  If you don’t mind.  I got nothing now except vengeance, and I can’t do anything about that here.”

I must’ve looked a little pissed at having an old fart tagging along.

“And don’t worry, ya little shit,” Bill said, reading my mind.  “I can take care of myself.  Have been since you before you were swimmin' in your daddy's scrotum.”

Ok, I admit it.  I kinda liked this guy.

22.   

Over the next week we made about a hundred miles at a pretty good clip.  Bill drove us hard, stopping only for a few minutes of rest or a shit-break.  The oxygen seemed to have leveled off, and our relatively healthy lungs did ok.  Even Ashley’s body seemed to adjust to the changing temperature and her cold went away. 

One day, as the sun set, we gathered up our supplies in our new collection of backpacks to resume the march.  I still had the army one that had lasted through an earthquake, a flood, monsoon rains, and its first battle of the new era.  Bill watched me pack it up.  He picked up the swollen, water-logged Kerouac book.