Last Week

by Catfish Russ

Part 1 appears
in this issue.

conclusion

Most everyone had fled when bombs started dropping on the Spring Mountain community. Then the Army dropped leaflets and declared Vegas to be U.S. Government Restricted Access Zone, and the squatters, except for sharkers and other gangbangers, all left. So the trip to Reno was long and boring; but thank God for boring on days like these.

On the way he stopped and left the road and went into a culvert where his insiders had left him new gasoline. He filled the truck. It had extra tanks hidden inside the armored doors, and he used the generator gas he had collected and emptied that into his hidden tanks.

Caroline went off into the woods to pee. They froze when two combat jets flew directly over them, absolutely without warning. Other than that, there was nothing in the air and there had been nothing in the air for weeks except artillery shells.

They slept in an abandoned Comfort Inn that had been secured by resistance forces. There was a secret garage entrance, and Wayne took his truck inside at around 12:30 a.m. The rooms provided were running on generators hidden below the building.

There was even a wireless SatTV. He tried to find a station but most of what was broadcast was an appeal to surrender from the President, and the movie The Professional, with Jean Reno and Natalie Portman in French with subtitles. They watched that while eating rabbit stew and warmed biscuits with butter. The last of that too. They slept at 6 pm and awoke at 3 a.m. to sounds of voices.

Shhh, Wayne indicated in the room illuminated by a channel dial. Emily was fast asleep.

“Sharkers,” Caroline whispered.

“They wouldn’t even know how to get into these rooms or the garage. Don’t worry.”

Wayne activated a silent recon system and pointed an infrared camera at them. The Sharkers had built a bonfire in the street in front of the hotel. They were loud and drunk, and two started a fight that went off camera. Another couple had sex. They all talked for a while, smoked, and then quieted down.

“About eleven of them.”

“What if they get in here?” Caroline looked worried.

“They won’t.”

“But what if they do?”

“They won’t, Pooh.”

He watched them for a while and when they slept, he slept.

He awoke at 6 a.m. and went back to the monitor. They were all asleep, amongst emptied beer and wine bottles. Silently they packed and Wayne re-secured the hotel.

He opened the garage door and drove quietly out past them. One of them lay dead; the rest lay among empty bottles of ’shine or homemade liquor. There was plenty of wine and beer in the world; just most of it was bartered. Wayne had traded his first bottle of wine for a .45 from a rich old man who once lived in a huge home in Henderson. That was the beginning of the end. When the economy failed and the dollar meant nothing.

The second day of driving was rainy. He slowed down because the roads up through the mountains of Idaho had not been serviced for years. This was a good decision, as many large potholes and whole sections of missing roads had to be negotiated.

Eight hours later, the rain had ended and they enjoyed a beautiful orange sunset off to the left. Wayne pulled into another secret post, but this one was a bust. It had been discovered and looted. All the electronic surveillance systems were yanked from the walls of this little cabin and the bunker under it had been blown.

“Bad news?” Caroline asked.

“Well, I think we’ll be OK for the night. I’m almost out of gas. We can make it over the Canadian border on the natural gas and on the diesel. But for tonight, we stay here.”

“Alright,” Caroline said, sweeping her bangs out of her eyes. She seemed a little stronger today. It made Wayne feel better too.

He unhitched the wagon, opened the truck and pulled out an extender bed from the back.

“Well we’ll sleep under the stars tonight.” On the hill about a mile from the main highway it was growing dark. There was no more light pollution in the U.S. They could see every star in the sky and the Milky Way.

And the shard.

That night an animal howled or yelled out in the woods to the east. It creeped Wayne out, and he reached for his PepperBox and set the gun to fire all barrels.

Caroline slept with Emily in her arms. Both of them snored.

Two more jets passed overhead at extreme speeds without waking up either of his girls. The first one looped upwards and the second one followed it and fired a missile at the first one. Both the planes and the missile flew behind a mountain range. The end of that dogfight would be a mystery.

Wayne mentioned nothing of it to Car or Em.

The next night they made it to Kelowna International Airport, east of Vancouver. A modern building had once been a regional airport for coal mining and logging executives. The resistance had built it as an underground railroad for people trying to get out of the Midwest Territories.

“This is it, Pooh.”

“We’re staying at the airport?”

“It’s perfectly safe. We’ll have food and water and electricity as long as we need. Other NPA fighters may come in or out of here, but this old facility is home now.”

“Where are we going to sleep?”

“The control tower. It has beds and baths and entertainment.”

They drove into a spiraling parking deck and parked in a secured area that opened to Wayne’s fingerprint.

“I want a dog, Mommy,” Emily said.

“There are shows about dogs on the screen upstairs, Emmy.”

“Puppies?”

“Yes, puppy shows.”

Caroline gave him the what-hell-are-you-doing-with-this-patently-untrue-story look.

Five trips from the car to the tower and they began getting out of the bags and travel clothes.

Wayne pulled out sandwich fixings and set them on a long-dead control panel. Caroline found the fridge and announced it had beer inside. Wayne dropped everything and ran to find her. Corona and Negra Modelo and Idaho Freedom Lager. They sucked a few down.

Caroline put on water and started boiling eggs. He yanked bread out of the fridge and stuffed it in a toaster and pushed the lever down. She pulled margarine and knives out and found a can of tuna fish. Wayne opened the can, drained the water and placed it in a bowl, opened a jar of mayonnaise and dolloped it into the tuna. Caroline added some chopped sweet pickles and salt and a few minutes later hard-boiled eggs. They made sandwiches and ate in ravenous silence.

Caroline found the shower stall. “Come here, Emmy. Want to take a bath with Mommy?”

“I want to see puppy videos.”

“Tell Daddy, he knows where they are.”

Saving his family’s life will not save a man from their scorn. A fact of life.

Moments later Caroline and Emily were showering.

Wayne switched on another generator and waited his turn for the shower. He pulled out his music player and put on some oldies: The Shanghai Restoration Project and AIM. And even a little Ray Charles.

He dug into a drawer built into a couch.

Cigarettes.

Caroline found towels and dried Em off in a little temporary dressing room with 1960’s hanging bead curtains as a separator.

He didn’t look at Caroline. She didn’t look at him. Long ago the both had gained weight, and frankly by the time the population was facing imminent death, no one on Earth felt very sexy.

Sleep came to everyone quickly. Emily was curled up in Caroline’s arms and she and Emily were both on a gigantic cushiony leather couch under a large conning tower window. It was getting dark out.

It was 10 a.m. before Wayne awoke and noticed the lights were still on, and so was the music. He shut it all down and almost cursed about wasted power. But what difference did that make? Less than 12 hours away from impact and enough power to last 200 hours. So what’s the point about being mad?

Car and Em were sound asleep and there was stillness, for the first time in a long time and he relished it. The race for cover was over. The tension eased. Ironic, huh, how the tension eases on the eve of dying.

He lit one of the cigarettes and took a drag. He felt the high rushing through him. It made swim for a bit, almost dizzy. All of this because of a giant piece of rock and ice about to hit the Earth. One that is hundreds of miles long and who knows how much it weighs? This thing is shooting at us like a bullet through the heart...

“Whacha thinking?”

Caroline was up.

“I’m thinking that when the time comes, I could certainly take my pill and end it all. But I don’t think I can give Emily hers.”

Caroline reached for the cigarettes and the lighter. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

“Really? I thought you were afraid that she would burn to death or breathe noxious fumes or die in an earthquake.”

“I am, honey. It’s just that, what if they’re wrong? And what if we don’t burn to death?” Caroline lit a cigarette and took a drag. “I cannot give her the pill.”

A long silence passed wherein Wayne finished and put out the cigarette.

Caroline added: “I’m not taking my pill, either. You can take yours. But since I can’t kill my daughter, and I can’t let you kill my daughter, therefore I have to stay alive to help her. If God wants her, let him come and get her himself.”

He was shocked. He also wondered how many people around the world were making that decision right now. Whether or not to take their painless suicide pill. X-It they call it.

“OK, then,” Wayne said. “I won’t take mine either. We’ll hold on here as long as we can.”

“You know if we survive, the Army’s going to hunt you down.”

“They won’t find me.”

“You’ve been saying that for years.”

“Have I been wrong?”

“No you haven’t. But if we survive, I want a husband who isn’t an insurgent leader. I just want a husband.”

He stared at nothing. Then finally said, “I’m sick of it too, honey. I really am.”

It began raining and a gentle beat on the roof settled both of them. She took his hand and pulled him down beside her and they slept again, and waited.