1
“You don’t know
who to call even if you fix it.”
Jonathan Harmon, M.D. flinched at the
sound of his wife’s voice echoing loudly across the dim, carpetless living
room. He put a hand to his chest, trying to get his breath back.
“Sorry.”
John smiled at her, thinking she had
finally gained a little weight in the month they’d spent hiding in their home
together. Anne was probably half of his 240 lbs, with hair still mostly brown
instead of his salt and pepper. She looked good for 58. He hadn’t been as
lucky.
“You did that a’purpose,” he accused
with a grin in his voice.
Anne nodded, brown eyes twinkling above
fine age lines, as she set the large afghan she was knitting on the recliner’s
matching brown end table. “I had to. You look so sad.”
John turned back to the only window in
their large, two-story farm house that they hadn’t covered in layers of thick
plastic. Stalling, he took off his glasses and laid them on the cord he really
didn’t know how to repair, aged blue eyes frowning at the Discovery Channel
special going on in their muddy front yard.
Their neighbor’s dog had collapsed and
died near the barn yesterday. The Collie’s beautiful coat was bloody from what
was probably a gunshot, the carcass now a carpet of swarming, mutated ants, with
bloated bodies twitching in effort and obvious communication as they struggled
to move the food.
Backdropped by a view of the Rocky
Mountains that was now hazy from the layer of grit in the darkening sky, the
foraging ants were each the size of a quarter. The biggest he had seen around
here yet, their bodies were constantly changing from all the radiation and
chemicals they were ingesting from the carrion. All nests were getting regular
doses of contaminated miracle-grow now and John hated to think about what it
was doing to the snakes and spiders. Once Nature finished cleaning up, leaving
only bones, these predators would move on to other food sources - like people -
and though only time would tell, he was sure their bites would be poisonous.
The final waves of radiation sickness
would be the next in a long line of dangerous viruses to mutate, but it would
make smallpox and bird flu seem minor in comparison. The death toll from this
man-made hell wouldn’t end for a century or more.
His eyes looked over rangeland covered
in prairie grass that was permanently bent from the wind’s onslaught, fields
ready for a planting season that would never come. Everything had changed. It
had been 38 years since he and Anne were in the army, medics at the same MASH
unit in Vietnam, but he had to remember what had kept him alive back then, so
they could use it now.
“We need to pack up and go. The
weather’s not as bad now that almost two months have passed. We’ve cleaned out
the reserves we had.”
John didn’t look over, but was sure he
had caught her off guard with his words. He didn’t know yet where they would
end up, or if they would even be able to make the trip. It definitely wouldn’t
be a blow off. He only knew that their hometown of Rawlins - the place they had
both been born - was no longer safe, and even if it was, the temperatures were
still falling, were below freezing right now. They couldn’t stay here much
longer or they’d stay forever.
The lonely echo of his wife’s shoes on
the bare wood floor as she moved toward him, had John wondering what it sounded
like as it floated down to the dark, flooded tunnels of their barricaded
basement. Was it a dinner bell to those open dark ways and everything that
might now be calling that nasty area home? They heard noises sometimes, never
sure if it was the moment they would have to defend themselves, but never went
down there. They also didn’t remove the boards he had sealed it up with, only
hammered the nails back in regularly, but they did occasionally tense and look
that way, and he was glad she knew how to use both the shotgun and the rifle he
kept by her chair. Not that a firearm would be very effective against sewer
rats.
“But why should we, Johnnie? We get
along here.”
“We’ve seen no signs of anyone coming to
save us…and because of the basement.”
Scratch...
sniff… sniff.
As if to prove his point, they heard the
curious, hungry rodents clearly. The grates at the other end of their treeless
grazing land kept out the bigger problems, but the rat populations had come in
by the hundreds after the War and they’d had to seal off the unused parts of
their home. The rodents were big, much too wide to get under the floors, but
their pups wouldn’t be, and John expected to start seeing them in great numbers
soon, considering they could have a litter a month.
“Where would we go? Other than those men
with the guns, we ain’t seen a healthy person in nigh on two weeks.”
John forced his hand away from his
aching stomach, eyes still on the yard. He wished that ugly green twilight sun
would finish setting and hide the view so she wouldn’t see it and get upset.
“Johnnie?”
The thought of leaving their home hadn’t
occurred to her, was terrifying, and though he felt it too, the fear wasn’t
strong enough to get John to change his mind. She had to see things his way
this time. Her life depended on it.
“To NORAD, for starters. We’ll surrender
to the Draft.” The graying sawbones said it firmly, almost sure they would find
little at the Colorado complex. That world had moved on.
“What if it’s all like here, or worse?”
She was referring to the dead pets, dead
police, dead crops, and of course, dead friends and neighbors they had known
all their lives. The horrors were still fresh for Anne, especially the memory
of passing the neighbor's wrecked truck on the two-lane dirt road to their
farm. Both doors were open, and they’d seen the bullet holes in the windshield
as they returned from their burning office to avoid the panic gripping their
town, their country. She had wanted to stop, but there hadn’t been a reason to.
The elderly couple was dead, their brains all over the road.
“We’ll have to do some searching. Other
healthy survivors are out there. I know it doesn’t seem that way when you look
out the window, but there are. We just have to find them.” He winced at his
reference to the window.
“But we’re old, they won’t want us.
Shouldn’t we just stay here?”
It broke John’s heart to tell her no,
but he did, had to. “That, my dear Anne, is exactly what most people will do,
and they’ll die. What the weather and disease don’t take, the gangs and
starvation will. All these threats are lessened when humanity comes together.
Despite its flaws, humankind is not better off without society.”
He looked into her frightened eyes and
when she leaned toward him, tan slacks rustling, he gently surrounded her with
his strong arms, hoping she wouldn’t notice his racing pulse. “You’re a Nurse,
I’m a Doctor. It’s wrong of us to hide and deny them our help. They need us now
more than ever.”
He kissed her wrinkled forehead, smiled
at her, “Our age won’t matter, except to make us more valuable because of all
our experience.”
John played his trump card without
guilt, knowing her inability to catch pregnant (which he believed to be his
fault) would keep her from arguing more. Suddenly sorry he had never talked to
her about adopting, John ignored the pain in his gut and looked at her with
doubtless blue eyes.
“There are a lot of kids out there too,
Anna, kids who are alone and hurting. They need us. Trust me, my sweet, I do
this for you.”
“I do, Johnnie. You know that. I always
have.”
He nodded, gritting his teeth against a
burning wave of pain that settled deep in his guts. “Good. We’ll leave this
week.”
Anne turned her head and John tensed,
expecting a bad reaction as her eyes landed on the gruesome scene outside. She
shuddered and he opened his mouth to comfort her.
“I never did like that damned dog. It
barked too much.”
Anne went back to her knitting, leaving
him with a shocked look on his lightly bearded face, and a smile in his heart.
Even after all these years, she was still capable of surprising him, and he was
happier than he could say, that they had survived the actual War together.
There was no one he would rather be with.
2
A while later, John was still at the
window, big ants (and their dinner) gone, the freezing rain returning for yet
another round. His mind was still on his wife of 37 years, on the half-truths
he had told her. He never lied, but often left things out…and this time it was
something huge. He would tell her soon, though. She had a right to know that
this next year together would probably be their last.
John sighed. He had to get her to some
kind of safety, and he had to do it now, knew she would refuse to go if he told
her why they were really leaving.
Movement in the dimness caught John’s
eye, mostly because they saw so little of it now, and he froze, watching a
shadow limp across their driveway , keeping to the line of dying bushes around
the edge of the long porch. They had seen a lot of radiation victims after the
War, most in the early stages where travel was still possible, and he tensed,
expecting one of the walking dead.
Tall and thin with dirty black curls
under goggles, the young woman wore a long muddy coat that came to the tops of
her black boots. Should he call to her? She looked healthy other than the
slight limp - normal.
Before he could decide, she turned
toward the window and saw him. Her eyes widened in fear, panicked feet slipping
on muddy debris, and then she was gone, disappearing into the hazy darkness.
John started to go to the door anyway,
and had to sit back down in the hard chair, grimacing at another sharp lance of
burning pain. He rubbed his swollen stomach, wishing the pills would hurry. He
needed a lab that still had power, so he could run some basic tests. It would
be easier to plan his wife’s future if he knew how long he had before the
cancer ended his life.
John sighed again. He would insist,
something he didn’t usually do, and they would leave shortly, in the next few
days. He wouldn’t stop until he found someone to look after his sweet, gentle
mate. She would never last out in this hard, new World alone.
Glancing away from a missed ornament - a
gaudy, grinning reindeer lying under the couch - Anne tied the last knot of
string on the dark brown blanket, trying not to frown as she began to put away
the knitting supplies.
She didn’t look at her husband - didn’t
need to see him to know he was in pain, and gunny-sacking to keep her from
finding out...again. He could try to distract her with talk of kids all he
wanted, she did feel a bit of regret that she had never been able to bear him a
son, hadn’t wanted to take one in that wasn’t theirs, but it didn’t keep her
sharp eyes from noticing things. Something was wrong.
His eating and sleeping habits had
changed drastically, and she had seen the empty pill bottles in the trash. He
was protecting her from it, like he always did with the bad things, and while
she would do what he wanted and pretend she had no clue, she knew what she
knew. He was sick and looking for a place to leave her.
He wanted to be alone when he died, had
said it many times, claiming it would hurt too much to say goodbye, and while
she would do anything for him, she simply couldn't do that. Leaving him alone
to die would be a betrayal of their life together, and now, after all that had
happened, any betrayal of life was wrong. When they went, it would be together.
Nearly
a week later
“Go faster, John! Faster!”
“Hold on!”
The horrified Doctor swung the wagon
onto the dark woods that lined the road and killed the engine a few yards in,
glad for the heavy fog and cover of night.
“Get down! Low as you can!”
The elderly couple shoved themselves
into the floorboard as best they could. The hurting man stifled a groan at the
cramped position, glasses sliding from his face as the engines grew closer.
Pop-Pop!
Sscreeechhh!
Headlights flashed their way and they
tried to get lower, the gunshots and engines upon them as the storm rolled
overhead.
“I love you, Johnnie. Have since we was
kids.”
A cold hand locked onto his hairy wrist
through the sleeve of his plaid shirt, and John covered it with his own shaking
fingers, afraid he might wet himself despite all his efforts not to.
“And I you, my Sweet.”
The large group of cars began to fly by
and the couple froze, listening to the shots, wincing at each whine and
ricochet. Drunken shouts echoed, along
with thuds of metal hitting, scraping. Rain thumped on the roof, a tire
squealed, and a bullet pinged off their bumper, making them both jump. As their
grip on each other tightened, the fog was all that kept them from certain,
painful death.
Long minutes later, the gang was out of sight,
their noises fading to silence. Terrified it was a trick, that they’d been
seen, John kept them still for another fifteen minutes, only moving when the
bands of pain around his gut caused tears to slip out of his eyes against his
will.
Driving without lights, John turned them
west on 40, away from the gang. They would still go to Cheyenne Mountain, they
would just take a different path. They had been on the road for five days now,
and he had been careful to find ways through that didn’t require physical
labor. They weren’t spring chickens, and he wasn’t taking any more chances than
he had to. They were both a bit stiff and a little sore, but had agreed that
they felt more alert than they had in a long time.
“How long will this add?”
John slid his glasses back in place. “Couple
hours. We have to get off these frontage roads, but we’ll still make Routt
Ridge by dawn.”
Anne nodded, wrinkled fingers turning on
the heat and defrost, before digging into the bag behind his seat. “Here, take
these.”
She dropped two white pills into his
wrinkled hand, and held out an open mason jar of clear liquid. John took them
with a grateful look in his faded blue eyes. His gut was on fire, blood in his
temples pounding in time with his pain.
Anne said nothing, just turned on the
CB, and went back to checking channels. He was her man, her love, and she
wouldn’t let him suffer. She had a good idea now what was wrong, had been a
nurse long enough to read the signs he couldn’t hide on this journey, and it
would be a secret between them no more.
John’s eyes scanned the foggy landscape, able to see only faint outlines
of dude ranches and big game hunting lodges. Other than those, and the
occasional farm or dead vehicle in the road, there was almost nothing around
here. It had been isolated before. Now, it was desolate except for the bluegrass
that was exceptionally tall - up to the wagon’s roof in some places. Wind
howling through the shadowy darkness, they moved steadily through the foggy
drizzle for the next four hours.
John made good time, but when he saw the
next set of bodies and cars that were still smoking, he began to worry more.
This had been a group of travelers, maybe even a large family, and the gang had
killed them all. The back trail was indeed leading straight to NORAD. Had they
been there too?
The old man lurking inside winced as
another bump jarred him against the sharp spring sticking out of the seat, and
he shifted, trying to avoid it as the wagon chugged along the smoldering
streets of Granby, Colorado.
He hoped Anne would stay asleep despite
the rough ride, and he tried to take it easy so she would. The gentle snoring
coming from the blanket-filled passenger seat gave him hope she might sleep
through this particular stretch of road. One look out the foggy window and she
would know they were in danger again.
Signs of a battle littered the area, and
the winners had marked their victory with devastation. Homes were in flames -
even the pine trees on front lawns were burning, their cheery Christmas lights
melting onto their branches - cars were rammed through buildings, and lifeless
bodies, even horses lay where they’d been shot. The blood hadn’t dried yet, and
the doctor was horrified to see their tires leaving bloody tracks, but could do
nothing about it. The puddles were unavoidable.
Even with the windows up, the smell was
revolting: blood, shit, and charred skin. When he lowered the glass, stopped
momentarily to listen for survivors, he heard only wind and crackling flames,
nothing else. The equality state was no longer that. Now, only the strongest
would survive…and those with them,
John thought, looking over at his wife, before turning his eyes back to the
dangerous land around them. He and Anne had been that type in their youth, but
now he could only hope to find someone that would keep her protected.
Pushing away the worry, he tried to
concentrate on the debris-laden road, but found his eyes flicking off the
horror to peer at the sky. He hated it that there was no moon, no stars, just
grit and thick, nasty smelling smoke. Like
a damned episode of the Twilight Zone, he complained silently, grateful
that the pills were pushing back the agony.
John had automatically slowed to watch
for signs of survivors, but the gang had been very thorough and after a long
minute, he drove on. Granby was a cemetery without a headstone.
4
Dawn was just starting to break as they
cleared the city limits, the dusty sky barely hinting at light, and while he
knew he couldn’t go another full day without sleep, he also knew they weren’t stopping
near here, not even for a stretch. Those men might...
“Want me to drive?” Anne asked, making him
jump. “I’ve got my glasses.”
He nodded, smiling tightly as he
loosened the belt over his swollen abdomen. “Yes, but not yet. We’ll switch
after brunch and I’ll snooze in your warm spot.”
She smiled back as she adjusted her silk
shawl tighter over her sweater, then closed her eyes and laid her head back on
the pillow against the locked door. Instead of giving him hell about not
telling her he was sick, she was hadn’t even mentioned it, just adjusted to
care for him as they traveled. She was handling the trip well. Had she too been
just a little bored, a little restless?
Hell
of a way to have an adventure, he thought, still wanting to see the
stars. There was a bite to the wind that said they would be running the heater
all day, and he was very glad of the cans on the luggage rack. Three hours at a
gas station with a foot pump had given him a nasty backache, but they were good
for two weeks of driving, and he hoped to find a safe place long before it ran
out.
Along with the gang they had just hidden
from, there had also been other dangers on this trip, like the radiation victim
that had snuck up on them in the fog three days ago and almost got the door
open before he could get the wagon into drive. Talk about taking some years off my life, John thought with a touch
of bitterness. The weather was also hard to drive in, but at least the acid
rain would force the walking dead to hole up somewhere and start dying. With
the open sores and lack of reasoning skills, the zombies would go to ground and
not come up.
The doctor inched along without
headlights toward the government compound, casting his eyes over the tarp in
the back of the wagon that hid their belongings - the last remnants of their
life together. He desperately wanted to find a group of people like themselves…different.
John knew they were out there, gathering somewhere, he could feel the pull of
their calls, but saw no one, and the old Ford kept on chugging.
5
Half an hour before dawn barely lit the
sky, the rain and fog had lightened and the wagon sat on Routt Ridge. The
occupants waited silently, but their hope was gone, the billowing smoke was
undeniable. Their safety was in flames.
Surveying the surrounding area, John watched
ants taking the poison bait balls he’d thrown out of the window when they’d
first stopped. The ants here were bigger, but their hill was enormous, - three feet
high and probably just as wide - with a snakeskin and the bones of lizards
scattered around it. The order of nature had been reversed and even here, the
smells of smoke, rot, and mildew lingered under the fresh scent of clean air
and pine trees.
“Check again. Maybe we’ll hear
survivors.”
Anne did it slowly, but they heard
nothing until the last station. John put a gentle hand on his wife’s wrist to
keep her from changing the channel, almost able to feel something coming.
“Wait.”
A second later, the radio lit up with
heavy static an a man’s determined words.
“Safe Haven - Red Cross... Welcome
all…survivors follow…clear means closer...”
They lost it, the radio going back to full
static, and John looked over, not needing to see the horrors in the bunker to
know they were there.
Anne’s voice was shaky, but there was confidence
in her aged brown eyes - confidence in him. “Whatever you think, Johnnie.”
He hesitated, considered. They could at
least check them out from a distance. With NORAD gone, there was nowhere else he
could think of for them to go. If that complex had fallen, and the pillars of
sickly black smoke said it had, then no place was safe.
“All right.”
John headed them west, sure they
couldn’t have heard the transmission if the people were to the south. The
mountains wouldn’t allow the waves to carry even that well on his cheap radio.
He would narrow it down by the clarity of the calls, and they would see if this
so-called Safe Haven was aptly named.
John believed leaving their home was the
right thing to do. They had started seeing rats the day before, and his last
memory of the home they’d shared for so long, was of hanging the Warning!
Rodents! sign on the front door.
They would
probably have been sick by now, if they’d stayed. He had waited as long as he could,
and though he knew the group they ended up with probably wouldn’t be what he
was hoping for, if his beloved wife would be safe and have a guaranteed place
after he was gone, he would offer his services in exchange. If that didn’t
work, he’d beg.
