Текст книги "Sunrise"

Автор книги: Mike Mullin

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Chapter 12

The pork in the trucks was originally from Warren, but Mayor Petty was still mostly unconscious and in no shape to divide it up. I talked to Uncle Paul and Dr. McCarthy about it, and we agreed to send the seven semis of pork back to Warren with the refugees but to keep the panel van. It contained enough meat to feed Uncle Paul’s family—my family now– for years. I sent one of our remaining pickups to Warren and kept one—it’d be useful around the farm, at least until we ran out of gas.

It took three days to get people moved from the farm back to Warren. Most of them volunteered to

stay behind and help dismantle the ramshackle structures they’d been living in, but I could tell they were anxious to get home, so I told them not to bother.

We scavenged the useful bits of the lean-tos but broke most of them up for firewood. For a while that saved us from the increasingly long trek to find uncut timber. We needed a lot of it—Darla said more than a cord per week—to keep the fires burning in the living room and in the hypocausts, the system of small underground tunnels that kept our greenhouses warm.

Fortunately the greenhouses were in decent shape. Since people had been sleeping in them and all the kale had been harvested and eaten, we had to turn the dirt and replant. I hoped our new crop of kale would come in soon enough to stave off scurvy. I didn’t particularly look forward to pulling a bloody toothbrush out of my mouth every morning. All our ducks were gone, slaughtered over the past few weeks to feed the horde from Warren, but we still had a breeding pair of goats.

Dr. McCarthy didn’t move back to Warren right away. Several of his patients, Mayor Petty included, were too sick to move. So Belinda returned to Warren to staff the clinic, and our living room continued to serve as a rude hospital.

Uncle Paul moved into Max’s room with the rest of the guys, because he said he couldn’t sleep in the master bedroom. So Mom theoretically had the master bedroom to herself. She hardly ever slept there, though—or slept at all. She spent most of her time in the living room, helping

Dr. McCarthy care for the last of the patients, particularly Mayor Petty.

Ed hadn’t left either, even after almost everyone else had moved back to Warren. Finally I asked him about it while we were chopping wood. “You headed to Warren soon?”

Ed lowered his axe, leaning on the handle. “Well, uh . . .” “Well, what?” I held the hatchet I was using midswing, waiting for him to answer.

“Been meaning to ask you. Couldn’t find the right time. Or words. You know.”

“No.” I set my hatchet down. “I have no clue what you’re talking about, Ed.”

“Thought I’d stay here. If you don’t mind, that is.” Ed leaned over farther, putting more weight on the axe handle. “I mean, you know, figure I owe you—”

“You don’t owe me anything, Ed.”

“That’s not true. But even if it was, I’d want to hang around and help. Seems like, well, stuff happens around you.” “That’s a great reason to leave—not stay,” I said.

“But still . . .”

I thought about it a moment. “That’d be fine,” I said finally.

Ed straightened up and hefted his axe. “That’s set, then.” I picked my hatchet back up. “Hey, why’re you asking me? It’s Uncle Paul’s farm.”

Ed checked the swing of his axe. “You want me to ask him?”

“No, I will.”

“Thanks.”

And with that, we both returned to work.

I caught Uncle Paul later that day as he carried water into the kitchen. We stood at the sink, slopping water on our hands, trying to scrub off the grime of a day’s hard work.

“Ed wants to stay here,” I said.

Uncle Paul grunted.

“On the farm. With us.”

“Didn’t he used to be a flenser?”

“Yeah. And I used to be a high school student.”

Uncle Paul turned toward me, a sad smile creasing his cheeks. “Same thing, but with less cannibalism?”

I snorted. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“So what’d you tell Ed?”

“I told him he could stay, but I thought it should be your decision. It’s your place and all.”

Uncle Paul rubbed his hands on a dishrag in silence for a moment. Then he turned toward me, looking me dead in the eyes. “Max and Anna ate today because of decisions you made, Alex. You think Ed should stay, that’s good enough for me.”

Uncle Paul turned away, walking toward the kitchen table. I dried my hands in a surreal silence, not really feeling them. What exactly did this new responsibility mean?

Chapter 13

Ed and I trekked to Apple River Canyon State Park about every other day to cut wood. We couldn’t afford to let our woodpile get low in case something went wrong—say, some of us got sick—and we had to have enough wood on hand to keep all the fires burning until we could cut more.

We filled the toboggan we used for hauling wood faster than usual one morning and wound up back at the farm about an hour before lunchtime. As we were stacking wood near one of the greenhouses, I had the nagging feeling that something was missing.

“There’s no smoke,” I said.

“Whatcha mean?” Ed asked.

“The hypocaust vent. There’s usually smoke coming from it.”

“Huh. I’ll check on the fire.” Ed slid down into the hole that allowed access to the fire shelf, which was a small, stone-lined space where we kept a fire burning continuously. Smoke and heat from the fire rose along the sloping shelf and was funneled into tunnels under the greenhouses to warm the soil. I could see the door to the shelf from my vantage point above him—it was partly open to allow fresh air to enter, which was as it should be. Ed slid the door fully open and peered inside. “Fire’s burned out.”

“Nobody fed it this morning?”

“Guess not. I’ll get it going.”

I left Ed and jogged to the house. The cooking fire outside the kitchen was lit. Uncle Paul was there, roasting a large pork shoulder on a spit—our lunch.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Out in the greenhouses,” Uncle Paul said.

“No, I was just there.”

Uncle Paul shrugged, and I entered the house through the kitchen door. Darla was in there, cutting up the rest of the hog carcass that had supplied the shoulder. She didn’t know where everyone else was either. Avoiding her bloody hands, I leaned in for a kiss and then moved on to the living room.

Mayor Petty was asleep, and Dr. McCarthy sat nearby, reading what looked like a twenty-pound medical book.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

He barely glanced up. “I think your mom went out to the barn.”

A strange sight awaited me at the barn. The doors were thrown wide, letting the weak, yellowish daylight inside. The straw had been brushed away and the dirt floor smoothed. Anna, Max, Rebecca, and Ben sat on the floor, scratching numbers in the dirt. It looked like they were doing some kind of . . . math lesson? My mom and Alyssa stood farther inside, nearly shrouded in darkness. I could hear them fine.

“Remember,” Mom was saying, “an average attention span is about seven minutes. Plan two activities in each fifteen-minute block. Seven minutes of direct instruction, eight of individual practice, workstations, or buddy practice. The point is to break it up. Match your instruction to your students’ attention spans.”

Alyssa was listening and nodding, soaking it all in. Nobody had noticed me.

“Do you realize,” I said loud enough to carry over my mother’s words, “that it’s almost lunchtime?”

Max jumped to his feet. “Oh, crap. I haven’t fed the goats yet.”

“You’re supposed to do that first thing,” I said.

“I know. Mom used to . . . never mind. That’s no excuse.” Max took a step toward the door of the barn and then stopped, looking back at Alyssa. “Um, Alyssa, um, I mean teacher, Mrs., I mean Miss Fredericks. May I be excused?” Max’s face was flushed, and Alyssa was failing to suppress a laugh. Alyssa said, “Yes, you may go.” At nearly the same time, my mom said, “School isn’t over until lunchtime.”

Max didn’t wait for them to sort it out. He was off like a shot, heading for the house, where we kept the goats stabled in the guest room so they didn’t freeze to death at night.

Rebecca and Anna were standing now. “We’re supposed to be watering the kale in Greenhouse Two,” Rebecca said.

“Go,” I said. “We’ll hold off on lunch until all the morning chores are done.” Rebecca and Anna each grabbed two empty five-gallon pails, carrying them out of the barn.

Ben was still sitting in the dirt, working math problems. Mom was glaring at me, her arms folded over her chest, and now Alyssa was frowning.

“What were you supposed to be doing this morning, Ben?” I asked.

“Ben’s assignment was changed by the Sister Unit,” Ben said.

“Is the Sister Unit in charge of the chore roster?” I asked.

“Ben always does what the Sister Unit asks of him,” Ben said.

“Almost always,” Alyssa said. “We were on fire duty.”

“The fires under the greenhouses are out!” I said.

“I’m sorry,” Alyssa said. “Will the kale be—”

“It’ll be fine,” I said, although I wasn’t totally sure about that. “Ed’s getting the fires relit, and the ground holds heat a long time. But what were you doing? Playing school?”

“We weren’t playing, Alex,” Mom said. “These kids need to be in school.”

“We need to eat,” I said. “School is a luxury we can’t afford right now.”

“Education is no kind of luxury,” Mom said. “Without it we’re only one generation removed from barbarism.” “Without food there won’t be another generation.” “Why do you have to fight me all the time?”

“That’s not the—”

“I’ll go help Ed with the fires,” Alyssa said, stepping toward the barn door.

“Wait,” I said.

“Well,” Mom said, “you seem to have ended all hope for any more learning taking place this morning.” She pivoted abruptly and marched off toward the house.

I stared, not sure whether to chase after her or not. “I’m sorry,” Alyssa said. “I just . . . Dr. McCarthy asked me this morning what I was planning to do before the volcano erupted. I always wanted to get a teaching degree, work with kids like Ben, maybe.”

“You’d be great at that.”

“Your mom was there, and she started telling me how she got her start teaching special ed.”

My mother was a special ed teacher? She’d never told me about that. She’d been a principal for as long as I could remember.

“And anyway,” Alyssa continued, “things kind of snowballed from there, and everyone was really enthusiastic about the idea, especially your mom. I figured we could teach practical classes too. I was going to ask you to run a taekwondo class, maybe have your uncle teach gun safety and marksmanship, stuff like that.”

“It’s a good idea, but—”

“I know. We should have waited until all the work was done. It doesn’t seem like there’ll ever be enough time to do everything we need and want to do.”

“Could you design lessons that could be taught while you do chores? It doesn’t take much brainpower to water the kale or wash clothing. I could change the duty rotations to give you time with each of your students and with Mom if you want.”

“That could work.” Alyssa turned toward Ben, who was still sitting on the floor, scratching columns of figures into the dirt. “Come on, let’s get our chores done.” He stood and brushed off his pants.

I started to leave, but Alyssa caught my arm, leaned in, and kissed my cheek.

“What was that for?” I asked.

“You’re sweet.” She left the barn, Ben trailing behind her, heading for the greenhouses.

I rubbed the spot she’d kissed, wondering what I’d done to make Alyssa think I was sweet. And why did my mother seem to disagree so adamantly?

Chapter 14

Dr. McCarthy and Mayor Petty were with us for almost a month. Petty clung to life stubbornly despite his amputated legs, despite the infections that raced through his body leaving him feverish and incoherent. When his condition improved enough, Belinda drove out in Dr. McCarthy’s old Studebaker, a folded wheelchair jammed into its backseat. A few days later, Petty, McCarthy, and Belinda moved back to town, and the farm settled into a routine of sorts.

We tore up all the carpet in the living room. It was too badly stained with blood, urine, and other unidentifiable fluids to be salvaged. The rough wood floor underneath wasn’t as comfortable, but it smelled a lot better.

Our kale crop came in blessedly fast, as if the soil in the greenhouses had stored up all that energy from going unplanted and now was pumping it into our crop. As soon as the first shoots were a few inches long, we started harvesting them, eating only one shoot per person per day to prevent scurvy.

Alyssa took all the most boring, repetitive jobs so she could practice teaching while she worked. She hung around Mom a lot, talking about her students: Anna, Rebecca, Max, and Ben. Ben was older than she, and the rest weren’t much younger, but they seemed to enjoy the classes. Darla never participated, and I was usually far too busy. Occasionally Alyssa organized evening classes that we all attended. The subjects ranged from taekwondo to fire safety, marksmanship, or greenhouse farming. Uncle Paul taught most of the evening seminars, although I led the taekwondo classes, of course.

Darla got steadily stronger, working longer and longer days beside me. There was—as always—no end to the work. Clothes had to be washed by hand, wood had to be cut, kale watered. Darla kept sleeping beside me too, abandoning the girls’ room where Alyssa, Rebecca, and Anna slept. Ben, Uncle Paul, Max, and Ed all slept in Max’s bedroom too, so it wasn’t like we could make out or anything. The greenhouses were better for that. They were warm—particularly in the middle of the day—heated by the hypocaust and what wan light filtered through the ash and sulfur dioxide still polluting the stratosphere.

Darla had started challenging me to arm wrestle every night after dinner. Before her enslavement to the Dirty White Boys, I would never have agreed to arm wrestle with Darla—getting my wrist slammed to the table did nothing good for my ego. But I found that I could beat her easily now. Still, she kept challenging me, night after night, and losing.

Finally, after almost two months on the farm, she beat me. The next night I won—barely—but then she beat me three nights running, winning easily the third time.

The night after that, she waited until everyone else had left the dinner table before she banged her elbow down, holding her hand up, ready to clinch mine. “Ready?”

“Not tonight.”

“Really? You beat me, what, fifty or sixty nights running, and after three losses, you’re calling it quits?”

“Four losses. And yes.”

“Weak.”

“My ego may be weak, not my arms. You’re just freakishly strong.”

“You’re calling me a freak? Now you’ve got to wrestle.”

I reached out and grabbed her wrist, twisting her arm and pulling her out of her seat toward me. I caught her by surprise, wrenching her arm around and pulling her into my lap. “I guess I like wrestling after all,” I said, laughing.

I released her arm and craned my neck over her shoulder. She turned her head, and we kissed. She wrapped her

newly freed arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” she said when the kiss ended.

“Yeah?”

“We’re running out of wood.”

“Yeah,” I said, sighing heavily. I’d noticed the same thing—Apple River Canyon State Park was mostly stumps now.

“I want to try to get one of those wind turbines running,” Darla said.

“Wind turbines?”

“The big windmill things, east of Warren. There’re sixty or seventy of them. I’ve been talking to your uncle, and I think we might be able to do it—rig them to run under local control and use them to heat greenhouses. We’d need a lot of components—mostly parts from electric water heaters, some big metal tanks, insulation—oh, and tools. Some heavy gauge—”

“Okay, I get the picture.”

“I want to build another Bikezilla too.”

“So we need a couple of bicycles and a snowmobile. We’ve got enough kale to trade now. You ask Uncle Paul if we could take some to Warren to trade?”

“Yeah. He said to check with you.”

“What? Why?”

“I dunno. But we should go soon. The right time to deal with this is before we run out of wood completely.” “We’ll pick kale to trade in the morning. Head to Warren first thing.”

“Okay, good.” Darla kissed me again and slid off my lap. I didn’t mind. Somehow the talk of windmills, kale, and running out of wood had dampened my ardor. Why was Uncle Paul letting all of the farm’s problems fall into my lap? I wasn’t sure I wanted the responsibility: if I failed, we would all die.

Chapter 15

The next morning Ben found me in one of the greenhouses. Darla and I were picking kale, bagging it for trade.

“Lieutenant,” Ben said, “are you mounting an expedition to Warren today?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “We’re going to try to trade some kale for electrical parts Darla needs.”

“I request permission to accompany your expedition.”

“Sure, you can come along.” Then I hastily added, “If you bring Alyssa.”

Darla shot a sharp look my way, but I ignored

her. I didn’t think Ben would have any problem on a day trip to Warren, but if he did, I wanted Alyssa there too. She was the only one who could calm him on the rare occasions he melted down.

“When do we leave, sir?”

I’d told Ben to quit calling me “lieutenant” and “sir” about a million times. It didn’t help. “Meet us in the kitchen in about a half hour.”

Ben saluted and left the greenhouse.

The four of us piled into the captured pickup truck. Usually we walked the five miles to Warren—gas was nearly impossible to come by—but Darla had a huge shopping list of electrical components, tools, and parts. If the trip was successful, we’d need the carrying capacity of the truck.

As we approached Warren, Ben spoke up. “Where is the wall?”

“What wall?” Alyssa asked.

“The wall that Warren needs to build. Since no one has air power, tanks, or heavy ordinance, a wall is an effective means of defending the town. They should have built one by now. In fact, we need to move to town—”

“Move to town? Why?” I asked.

Ben had kept talking. “—because the farm cannot be defended effectively.”

“But the greenhouses—”

“The postapocalyptic society will inevitably devolve into a feudal system. We will live in town in times of danger and travel to the greenhouses outside to farm, or move all food production inside the walls, or perhaps inside a larger fixed defense system of some sort.”

“If I can get the windmills running,” Darla said, “it might be easier to move the town to the windmills.”

“Why not run power lines to the town?” I asked.

Ben answered, “Your solution would leave the power source vulnerable. The windmills could be attacked—or the power lines cut—leaving the town completely at the mercy of a besieging army.”

As Darla turned the truck into the parking lot at Dr. McCarthy’s clinic, Ben added, “Whether we move to the windmills or not, the town must adopt a better defensive posture. We should not have been able to come this far unchallenged.”

“I’ll talk to them about it,” I said.

Dr. McCarthy and Belinda were at the counter in the clinic, reading by the light of an oil lamp. “Slow day?” I asked.

“Yes, thank God,” Dr. McCarthy replied. “Only three rooms occupied. Two cases of pneumonia and a reinfected wound. Hope you aren’t bringing me any business.”

“Nope. Everything’s okay out at the farm. Well, except for Mom.”

“What are her symptoms?”

“She’s not sick, really. Just hardly ever sleeps. Spends a lot of time compulsively sorting old pictures.”

“I’d prescribe an SSRI if I had any or refer her to a specialist in cognitive behavioral therapy, if there were any in Warren.”

“What’s she got?”

“Maybe post-traumatic stress disorder? I’m not an expert. Maybe she’ll get better with time.”

“There’s nothing we can do?”

“Wait. Reassure her if you can. She was a big help with the hospital and Mayor Petty. I think she’ll pull through.” I slung my backpack off my shoulder and pulled out a large bag of kale. “For your patients. Anyone showing signs of scurvy?”

“Not yet, but they’ll be starting to present symptoms soon.”

“Don’t tell anyone he gave you that for free,” Darla said. “We’ve got a bunch more we’re going to try to trade.” Dr. McCarthy nodded.

“Who’s in charge now?” I asked.

“Bob Petty. Same as always.”

“What? Really? After the forked-up mess he made of retaking Warren?”

“Yes. Really. Soon as he was getting around okay in that wheelchair, he picked up where he left off. Seems more determined than ever to run things. Couple of people suggested holding elections, but nothing came of it.”

The mayor’s office was a three-room brick building across the railroad tracks from Warren’s tiny downtown. The front office was deserted, but I saw a bustle of activity in the conference room. Eight women sat around the table, laboriously copying a notice about food distribution. The mayor chatted with the women from his wheelchair at the head of the table.

The mayor looked up as I stepped into the room. “Alex, pleasant surprise. What brings you to Warren?”

“Glad to see you’re on your . . . feeling better, I mean.” I felt my face flush at my near-gaffe.

“Doc’s a miracle worker.”

“Yeah, he is. I’ve got a list of stuff we’d like to trade for. Our kale came in—we brought some to trade.” “Already? Our kale’s barely sprouting.”

“How long did it take them to plant?” Darla whispered scornfully.

Evidently Mayor Petty overheard her. “The town’s greenhouses were badly damaged during the occupation. Folks had to clean up their own homes too. And not everyone has as fine a green thumb as the Halprins. Your aunt could grow turnips in the tailings from a coal mine if she put her mind to it.”

“Not anymore,” I said quietly.

“Yes,” Mayor Petty replied in a similar tone. “Sorry. What were you looking to trade for, anyway? Got plenty of pork.” “Darla’s got a list.”

Darla pushed past me and handed the list to Mayor Petty. He slid a pair of reading glasses over his nose and peered down at the paper. “Believe Abe Miller, outside town, might still have a snowmobile. Don’t know if he’ll give it up or not, though. Should be plenty of bicycles around—city doesn’t own any, of course. I’ve got no idea where you’d find all this electrical stuff.”

“You should check your inventory,” Ben said.

“What inventory?”

“You must have taken an inventory of all supplies available in the town. It would be a basic survival preparation.” “Now, son, we don’t go messing with making lists of people’s private property. I don’t know what kind of big city you come from, but around here folks’ stuff is their own, and we don’t go making lists of it. Don’t tell them they can’t have Big Gulp sodas either. You want that stuff on your list, you’ll have to ask around, see if they want to trade.”

I groaned inwardly. Warren’s population had shrunk by almost eighty percent since the eruption, but that still left several hundred people. And what did soda have to do with anything, anyway?

“You are not sufficiently prepared for another attack,” Ben said. “You need to inventory all town supplies—pri-vate property or not. And you must begin building a wall immediately.”

“You want to build a wall, be my guest,” Mayor Petty said. “People around here are just struggling to survive. They don’t have the time or energy for a project like—” “If Stockton attacks again,” I said, “you’ll—”

“We beat them so bad they won’t be back for more.” Wait, what? I’d beaten the Reds and gotten Warren’s food back. Mayor Petty had gotten his ass kicked, his legs shot off, and my Aunt Caroline killed. While I was trying to think of an appropriate response, Darla spoke up. “What’re you going to do for heat when all the timber’s cut? We could use your help rounding up these supplies– we get them all, we might be able to rig a wind-powered heating system.”

“Got that covered. Going to eminent domain abandoned houses and grant salvage rights. Plenty of burnable wood in those.”

Darla said, “Even that—”

“Look,” Mayor Petty said, “I’d love to chew the fat all day, but we got ourselves a project here, getting ready to publicize the new food distribution rules. You’re welcome to trade with anyone who wants to or build yourself a wall if that’s what you feel like doing, but I’ve got real work to do.”

We wound up going house to house, knocking on doors and trying to trade our kale. We bought two bicycles fairly easily and then trekked a half mile out of town to buy what appeared to be the only remaining snowmobile in Warren. Lots of folks were willing to trade electric water heaters—they were useless without power, after all—but we could only fit two of them in the bed of the truck alongside the snowmobile.

I complained about Mayor Petty to Mom and Uncle Paul over the dinner table. “He’s doing the best he can,” Mom told me. “We’re all overwhelmed, and most of us still have two good legs.”

“I think Ben’s right,” Uncle Paul said. “He should be building a wall. And we should be living inside it and commuting to the farm. We can’t defend ourselves effectively here.”

“Maybe we could build an ice wall around the farm, like they had in Worthington,” Darla said.

“We do not have an adequate population on the farm to patrol or defend our own wall,” Ben said.

“If Warren gets attacked, everyone’s going to wind up right back here again,” I said.

Uncle Paul speared a slice of ham. “Nothing we can do about it.”

“What if he had an accident?” Max said.

“What?” I asked.

“Yeah, like the brakes on his wheelchair could sort of accidently fail, and then he could roll off a cliff.”

“So you’re going to sabotage his brakes, drive him somewhere there’s a cliff, and then push him off?” Anna asked. “Maaaaaybe,” Max replied.

“Maybe you’re an idiot,” Anna said.

“No, the mayor’s an idiot,” Max said.

“He’s a very nice man,” Mom said.

“Maybe the mayor is both nice and an idiot,” I said. “Either way, we’re not going to hurt him.”

“I was just joking,” Max said.

“Fine,” I said, even though I didn’t completely believe Max. I turned my attention to Uncle Paul. “There must be a way to get rid of him.”

“Don’t look at me,” Uncle Paul said.

“You could try protesting or something,” Anna said, “like those people who were always holding protest marches in Chicago.”

“Maybe,” Darla said. “But Warren’s a small town like Worthington. Nobody’s going to listen to outsiders.”

“I’ve lived near here almost all my life,” Uncle Paul said. “What we need to do,” I said, “is convince enough residents to complain, to make Mayor Petty change his mind and either build a wall or leave office.”

“Something must be done,” Ben said. “Warren’s strategic posture is completely unsustainable.”

“I’ll try,” I told Ben.

Darla released a sigh. “I’m going to get roped into helping you, aren’t I?”

“It’s up to you,” I said, “but I’d love your company.” “Are you sure this isn’t another case of Alex grabbing a lance and charging a windmill?” Darla asked.

It might be exactly that, I thought. “No. I’m not sure. But I think it’s worth trying.”

“I’d better come along, then. You might need some help if the windmill decides to fight back.”

Everyone was quiet for a while, wrapped up in our own thoughts. I thought about trying to convince enough people to protest to force Mayor Petty to take action or step down. I had plenty of work to do without getting involved in Warren’s byzantine politics.

But then I remembered the bloody road in front of Elmwood Cemetery, Aunt Caroline falling as the bullets tore into her stomach, Anna’s face when she was forced to say goodbye to her mother forever. Anything I could do, any amount of work, was worth it if it could prevent something like that from happening again. We had to find a way to defend ourselves adequately, and I had to make it happen.