then threw it from me. Because I’d read that look in their eyes. They’d have gone along with what I’d asked for. They were going to hang Crowther junior, the poor bastard.
Sweet Jesus Christ.
What was happening with these people?
Seven
“You’re kidding me, Valdiva.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Straight up?”
“Straight up.”
“You told them to hang the Crowther kid and they were actually going to do it?”
I nodded as I hooked the log before pulling it out of the lake onto the beach.
“But you say his own father was there?” Ben’s eyes were huge. He couldn’t get his head ’round this slice of news. “He was just going to stand by and watch his own son be killed?”
“He’d have put the noose ’round his own son’s neck if I’d demanded it.”
“Jesus.”
“I tell you, they looked weird. If you ask me the . . . what do you call it? Trauma . . . the trauma of what’s happened to these people over the last few months has gotten to them. They’re getting desperate.”
“Why? We’re safe enough here.”
“For the time being.”
“We’re damn lucky, Greg, The Caucus is publishing a report next week. They say we’ve got enough gasoline in those big storage tanks in the interchange to last ten years.”
“Yeah, I know, and enough juice for the power plant for twenty years if they ration the electricity supply to six hours a day.”
“And five warehouses crammed with canned foodstuff.”
“And close on a hundred thousand gallons of beer, truckloads of whiskey and about ten million cigarettes.” I hooked another hunk of wood and started hauling in. “Yeah, everything’s peachy.”
“Not peachy, Greg. But everything’s OK. What with the dairy herds and the poultry farms, fish from the lake and fruit from the orchards.” He sounded enthused now; words came tumbling out. “And the crops on the south end of the island, we’re self-sufficient. We can sit here for a decade and still not have to break sweat to feed ourselves. That’s going to be more than enough time for the country to get back to . . . oh, hell.”
The “oh, hell” indicated that the piece of timber I’d been hauling wasn’t a piece of timber after all. Instead of a three-foot hunk of firewood I saw a fraying head linked to a torso. The face and eyes had gone. Whether it was a man or woman I couldn’t say. All I could say for sure was that fifty pounds of human flesh had seen better days. I pushed it back out into the lake with the pole. Gas from inside the body bubbled out, making it sink slowly out of sight.
“Now you know why the fish get so fat these days,” I told Ben. “So you’re telling me the Caucus master plan is that we all sit tight here waiting for the government to announce that society is back to normal?”
“There’s no point in doing anything rash.”
I nodded across the lake at the distant hills. “You mean nothing rash like going out there and finding out for ourselves whether the country’s getting back on its feet again?”
“You know it’s too dangerous to leave the island.”
“You mean guys have left, but they never came back?”
“Sure, so why risk it?”
“Why risk it?” I hooked more wood—this time it was a window frame—and pulled it out of the water. “I figure we should satisfy ourselves that America, probably the whole world, has bellied up good and hard; then we can stop this pretense that one day the radio and TV stations will come back on air, and that the president’s going to announce everything’s hunky dory.”
“You don’t think it’s going to happen, Greg?”
“Do I hell. There is no president anymore. There is no government. They’re all dead.”
So we carried on. Ben being bright-eyed and optimistic. Me? Well, I was cynical as hell. Our nation, and every other nation, without doubt, was well and truly busted. Only the men and women of Sullivan, population 4800, were still locked down with a tungstenhard case of denial. USA’s
Sweet Jesus Christ.
What was happening with these people?
Seven
“You’re kidding me, Valdiva.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Straight up?”
“Straight up.”
“You told them to hang the Crowther kid and they were actually going to do it?”
I nodded as I hooked the log before pulling it out of the lake onto the beach.
“But you say his own father was there?” Ben’s eyes were huge. He couldn’t get his head ’round this slice of news. “He was just going to stand by and watch his own son be killed?”
“He’d have put the noose ’round his own son’s neck if I’d demanded it.”
“Jesus.”
“I tell you, they looked weird. If you ask me the . . . what do you call it? Trauma . . . the trauma of what’s happened to these people over the last few months has gotten to them. They’re getting desperate.”
“Why? We’re safe enough here.”
“For the time being.”
“We’re damn lucky, Greg, The Caucus is publishing a report next week. They say we’ve got enough gasoline in those big storage tanks in the interchange to last ten years.”
“Yeah, I know, and enough juice for the power plant for twenty years if they ration the electricity supply to six hours a day.”
“And five warehouses crammed with canned foodstuff.”
“And close on a hundred thousand gallons of beer, truckloads of whiskey and about ten million cigarettes.” I hooked another hunk of wood and started hauling in. “Yeah, everything’s peachy.”
“Not peachy, Greg. But everything’s OK. What with the dairy herds and the poultry farms, fish from the lake and fruit from the orchards.” He sounded enthused now; words came tumbling out. “And the crops on the south end of the island, we’re self-sufficient. We can sit here for a decade and still not have to break sweat to feed ourselves. That’s going to be more than enough time for the country to get back to . . . oh, hell.”
The “oh, hell” indicated that the piece of timber I’d been hauling wasn’t a piece of timber after all. Instead of a three-foot hunk of firewood I saw a fraying head linked to a torso. The face and eyes had gone. Whether it was a man or woman I couldn’t say. All I could say for sure was that fifty pounds of human flesh had seen better days. I pushed it back out into the lake with the pole. Gas from inside the body bubbled out, making it sink slowly out of sight.
“Now you know why the fish get so fat these days,” I told Ben. “So you’re telling me the Caucus master plan is that we all sit tight here waiting for the government to announce that society is back to normal?”
“There’s no point in doing anything rash.”
I nodded across the lake at the distant hills. “You mean nothing rash like going out there and finding out for ourselves whether the country’s getting back on its feet again?”
“You know it’s too dangerous to leave the island.”
“You mean guys have left, but they never came back?”
“Sure, so why risk it?”
“Why risk it?” I hooked more wood—this time it was a window frame—and pulled it out of the water. “I figure we should satisfy ourselves that America, probably the whole world, has bellied up good and hard; then we can stop this pretense that one day the radio and TV stations will come back on air, and that the president’s going to announce everything’s hunky dory.”
“You don’t think it’s going to happen, Greg?”
“Do I hell. There is no president anymore. There is no government. They’re all dead.”
So we carried on. Ben being bright-eyed and optimistic. Me? Well, I was cynical as hell. Our nation, and every other nation, without doubt, was well and truly busted. Only the men and women of Sullivan, population 4800, were still locked down with a tungstenhard case of denial. USA’s
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