FACING UNFAMILIAR GROUND _an EMP survival story Page 6

  She began seriously doubting what they were doing. Glen felt the need to do good in the world, but he could have been helpful in New Town. The city was a wild place, where you could lose your life in a moment of inattentiveness. Only instead of lions, the predators were human, and they weren’t interested in killing you for food. They took pleasure in the pain of others, both physical and mental. Death could take days to catch up with you.

  Mia felt the bile rising in her throat, and she pulled in deep breaths of air through her nose. She didn’t want the others to see how afraid she actually was. Her own thoughts were scaring her more than the women in the brothel had done the night before. She probably would have been safer in the brothel than she was out here.

  She noticed Christian watching her, and she smiled, pretending again. It was the only way she’d make it through. Just keep pretending that everything is okay. We aren’t walking to our deaths, no, we are traveling to where we are most needed. Yes. She used that as her mantra, ‘we are going where we are needed.’ It was calming, as long as she didn’t think about the fact that she wasn’t needed at all. It was Glen whose skills were required, and she had no clue as to why she, Sally, and Christian were tagging along.

  Lambs to the slaughter, that’s what they were.

  She shook her head. That wasn’t it. We are going where we are needed. She only wished the image in her head didn’t depict them as sheep and Glen as their shepherd.

  Lambs to the slaughter, going where they were needed. Ugh.

  They heard the shuttle long before they could see it. The rumble and whine of engines grew louder. They stepped to the side of the road when the dust trail became visible. It was surprising just how dusty the freeway had become. Now it was like watching a convoy streaming across the desert, the dust blowing up on both sides of the road.

  They blew on by without even slowing, the dust choking the travelers on the road. The driver of the semi pulling the bus waved as they went by, but the travelers flipped them the bird. Disappointment flooded through Mia, settling as a lump in her stomach as the vehicles rushed by. They weren’t even going to try bargaining with us, she thought. Her motorcycle rider raised two fingers in greeting as he went by, but he was wearing his helmet with the visor down so she couldn’t see his expression. They probably left travelers by the side of the road all the time. Nothing for him to regret.

  But the last van before the rear guard pulled over, and the side door slid open. A gray-haired woman put her head out. “Get in quick,” she said and moved out of the way. They didn’t hesitate and climbed in, crawling forward to let the others in. The door slid shut, and they were moving again to a chorus of horns sounding behind them.

  “We aren’t supposed to stop,” the woman said, “but I bartered a lot of goods to have this van to myself, and if I want to pick up people, I damn well will.”

  The woman wasn’t old, but her eyes were lined, and fine wrinkles were accentuating her laugh lines. Her hair waved in silver strands around her face and Mia could see that it was otherwise black. Her eyes were bright and alive, and her expression intelligent, and Mia suddenly no longer was afraid. If this woman was going to the city, then perhaps Mia would survive after all.

  The woman held out her hand to Mia, but instead of a handshake, she clasped Mia’s hand in a two-handed embrace that was warm and comforting. After she’d clasped the others’ hands as well, she nodded and smiled.

  “I am Anna Marie,” she said, “and my driver tells me her name is Speed, which I’m inclined to believe.” The woman behind the wheel looked into the rearview mirror and nodded before focusing back on the road ahead.

  There was no passenger seat in the front, but what looked like a cooler with a box of weapons balanced on top of it. The back was empty of seats as well, being taken up with a mattress and pillows, as well as smaller beanbag-like chairs. Mia realized the van had been set up to hold as many people as possible. It was much easier to pack people onto a mattress than into bench seats.

  And yet there was a lone passenger, someone willing to pay a premium to ride alone. She wondered why. Surely it would be more prudent to share with a fellow traveler or two.

  Anna Marie was watching her face and seemed to know what she was wondering. “Even a gentile-looking woman can rob you in your sleep,” she said. “I prefer to pay up front and know that my throat won’t be slit and my body dumped in a ditch. Not everyone has the means to safeguard themselves in that way, but I do.”

  “We set watch,” Sally said. She’d been watching Anna Marie watch me, Mia thought. “That’s how we stay safe.”

  “Thank you, Anna Marie, for stopping,” Glen said. “I greatly appreciate not spending the next three nights sleeping near the road.”

  “You paid for passage,” she said. “I saw you board the bus at the shuttle stop. I feel people should get what they pay for.”

  “But what if we rob you and leave your body in a ditch?” Mia asked.

  “But you will not.” Anna Marie smiled. “For one, I have no need of sleep before we reach the city, so you would not be able to take me unaware. For two, should you try, Speed would kill you. She is not only my driver but also my bodyguard for the duration of this journey. And third, I would not have picked you up if you were the type of people to rob an old lady making a pilgrimage to her hometown.”

  “You are not an old woman,” Christian said. “I’m pretty sure you could take on all four of us, even without Speed to back you up.”

  “What gives you that idea?” Sally asked.

  “I don’t know,” Christian frowned. “But I’d be surprised to find out anyone had taken Anna Marie unaware. Do you have psychic abilities?”

  “As far as I know, no one has psychic abilities. However, I am a keen observer and a student of body language and motivations, as well as human behavior. I don’t let down my guard, but I also don’t let anyone near me whose motivations aren’t clear to me.”

  “I’d ask what my motivations are,” Mia said, “but I’m not sure I want to be that self-aware.”

  Anna Marie laughed. “Very wise, young Mia, you are very wise indeed.”

  “How long has it been since you’ve been in Detroit?” Glen asked Anna Marie. “And why the pilgrimage? Surely it isn’t the same city you left.”

  “I was twenty years old when I left Detroit,” Anna Marie admitted. “So, it is most definitely not the same as it was then, even if the world had not ended. But I have memories that haunt me, so I must go back. And there are wrongs done that must be redressed if I am to go on with my life. And so, the pilgrimage. Why are you headed into the city?”

  “I have a specific skill that I haven’t been sharing with the world for a few years now. I hear it’s needed and I feel compelled to help.” Glen shrugged. “It’s as simple as that, really.”

  “May I ask what skill it is you possess?” Anna Marie said, lifting her eyebrows.

  “I’m a neurosurgeon, or at least I was in another life.”

  “That is a skill in need.” Anna Marie said to him, without asking why he hadn’t been practicing it. “And your traveling companions? Why are they headed to the city?”

  “Glen’s never been to Detroit, and we came from there,” Sally said. “We’re his guides.”

  “All three of you?” This time only one eyebrow lifted.

  “We are a team, a family,” Mia said. “Where one goes, we all go. We watch each other’s backs.”

  “I see.” Anna Marie smiled grimly. “I suppose that is less expensive than hiring bodyguards and paying for vans. But then I can afford to travel alone. I left my companions where they would be safe.”

  “And they let you go?” Mia asked. She couldn’t imagine letting Glen or Christian go off on their own. After all, that was why she was here.

  “I left them a note,” Anna Marie said. “If I’m lucky, they’ll only just have read it by the time I get back. I’m usually lucky,” she added, as if an afterthought.

  Mia could believe i
t. Anyone who could afford to pay for a driver/bodyguard and van also could buy their own luck. “Where are you coming from?”

  “California. The Sacramento Valley?” Anna Marie’s eyebrow raised again.

  “I’ve heard of the Central Valley, of course,” Mia said. “But I’ve never been there.”

  “I did my undergraduate work at UC Davis,” Glen said. “I’m intimately acquainted with a number of bars in Sacramento. Or at least bars that used to be in Sacramento. Don’t know if any of them are still there. Are bars still a thing? Can anyone get alcohol?”

  “Sure,” Anna Marie said. “Some places are hiring brewmasters or vintners to supply their customers. They get food and housing and all the beer or wine they can drink. I don’t know what they do for incidentals, but then I don’t know what anyone does for those. I pay good money -- well, what passes for money -- to a woman who procures goods for me. I know I’m one of the fortunate few. The one percent still is able to live comfortably, as long as not all their fortunes were in banks.”

  “That must be nice,” Mia said. “But we’ve been very comfortable in our little town. Well, we don’t actually live in the town, but are associated with it. We take care of Glen, he takes care of the town, and the town takes care of us.”

  “A sound arrangement,” Anna Marie said. “I only wonder why you would leave.”

  “There is a greater need for me in the cities,” Glen said. “That’s where people go when they need a specialist. But from what I’ve heard, unless you’re rich you can’t get treated. I want to change that, at least for neurosurgery.”

  “You’ll have a hard time finding a sterile environment outside of the hospitals,” Anna Marie said. “You may not be able to accomplish everything that you would like.”

  “That is the risk,” Glen said, “but if I don’t take the risk, nothing will change for certain.”

  “Indeed.” Anna Marie pointed out the windshield. “You just about can see the city now.”

  The four craned their necks to catch glimpses of Detroit, but this far out all they could see was a generic skyline of tall buildings reaching into the air. The downtown area didn’t seem to be much larger than a city like Sacramento, and a handful of skyscrapers broke up the horizon, but that was all.

  “Where did you say you were from, Glen?” Mia asked. “Philadelphia? How different is it from Detroit?”

  “Philadelphia is bigger, has more tall buildings, and is sandwiched between two rivers. Detroit has the Great Lakes and a river and a smaller downtown area,” Glen said. “I believe they are culturally different as well. Detroit has Motown, although I don’t know how it might have changed since the EMP. Philadelphia has the Philharmonic, and tends to lean toward being classier, or at least more stuck-up.”

  Anna Marie laughed. “I think you’ll find Detroit is just as stuck-up, but about less cultured things. Or, to be more politically correct, differently cultured things. How do you compare the Philharmonic with Motown? You just can’t,” she said. “But the good people of Detroit are just as proud of Motown as the people of Philadelphia are of the Philharmonic. Perhaps Philadelphians dress up more often, or used to, when dressing up was an option. But that also could be just my perception.”

  “You don’t need electricity for music,” Sally said, “so why wouldn’t there still be concerts?”

  “It’s just not safe to go out in large numbers,” Anna Marie said. “If there are musical gatherings, they are likely held in private homes behind iron gates.”

  “Or on back porches in the neighborhoods,” Mia said. “Let’s not forgot music is available to everyone. Not everyone can afford a violin, but most of us are born with a voice.”

  “Although some of us are also born tone-deaf,” Christian said, “and you’re asked not to sing.”

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard live music, or recorded music for that matter,” Sally said. “I hope we find some here, because I really miss it.”

  Christian looked at her in surprise. “I didn’t know that about you,” he said. “Do you play an instrument?”

  “Piano,” Sally responded, “but quite badly. And that was before I stopped practicing.”

  Mia laughed. “Don’t listen to her,” she said. “She plays very well in a range of musical styles. If we're fortunate enough to find a piano, we could make her play, and that would be all the music you’d ever need.”

  “Don’t exaggerate,” Sally said. “And anyway, any piano we are likely to find is going to be way out of tune.”

  Mia shrugged, and let the subject drop. If they did find a piano, Sally’s fingers would tell the story that she now was trying to ignore. Fifteen years of piano lessons did not produce a mediocre player, no matter what Sally said.

  “And where will you be staying in the city?” Anna Marie asked.

  “My family kept an apartment here,” Mia said. “If it hasn’t been taken over by squatters, then we will stay there.”

  “And if it has been taken over by squatters?” Anna Marie asked.

  Mia just shrugged. Who really knew the answer to that?

  Anna Marie rifled in the back and came out with a piece of paper and a pen. She wrote on it and handed the paper to Glen. “If you find yourself without a place to stay, come find me,” she said. “I’ve got plenty of room, and you’d be welcome.”

  The foursome thanked her, and Glen slid the paper into his inside jacket pocket. Mia thought she saw relief flicker across his face as well as gratitude. She didn’t blame him. It was always good to have a backup plan.

  When the van reached the city center, they parted ways with Anna Marie. She shook each of their hands and then walked away across the street. As she stepped onto the sidewalk, a tall gentleman slid out of the afternoon shadows and joined her. They shook hands and walked away together. Mia felt a pang of anxiety for Anna Marie. She hoped she got where she was going, that the memories haunting her finally would be put to rest.

  Mia took a deep breath and got her bearings. Then she said, “this way,” and led the others toward where she hoped her home lay waiting.

  Chapter Seven

  The sun was on the rise as Melvin climbed the three flights of stairs to the apartment. He stumbled on the last fight and came down on his knee, swearing at the pain. What he wouldn’t give for a working elevator at the end of a night like that one. Fatigue washed over him as he dragged his weary body down the hall to the apartment.

  He carefully unlocked the deadbolt and the handle of the front door. Then he pulled a magnet from his jacket pocket and placed it precisely two inches below the top of the doorframe. He slid the magnet carefully to the right. This movement was accompanied by the welcome rasp of metal on metal. He repeated the action five inches from the floor. When he’d installed these magnetic locks, he’d had to resist the urge to place them symmetrically, each two inches from the top or bottom of the door. That is what most people would do, and it just made it easier for burglars to break in. So he didn’t. If his hypothetical criminal happened to carry a magnet and happened to discover his first magnetic lock, it would at least be harder to find the second.

  He sometimes wondered if he should install a third lock. But so far he hadn’t needed it. He slipped through the door and bolted the inside deadlock and the handle. He left the two bars alone. He didn’t feel the need to latch them when he was at home, since he could hear if someone was trying to get in.

  Inside he performed his customary security sweep, moving room to room looking for intruders. He checked the shower, the closets, and under the bed before heading to the kitchen and lighting the propane-fueled stove with a match. He’d never come home to find an intruder, and he’d stopped expecting one, but you never knew when you might come home to see the original owners settling back in. Or people who fancied themselves the new owners.

  He wondered if they had escaped the city, leaving many valuable possessions behind. Or if they had been killed, enslaved, or just had died quietly by the side of the
boulevard, like so many others. He’d put the family photos away in a drawer It unnerved him to have the former owners watching him from inside their frames. He felt their disapproval of him using items they’d left behind in a panic.

  But they had left them, Melvin reminded himself. If they’d really wanted or needed an item, they would have taken it with them, or come back for it. And they had not. He thought he must have survivor’s guilt. He was living in comfort when the people who belonged here had disappeared to no one knew where.

  He ate his oatmeal quickly and then padded down the hall in his stocking feet to the master bedroom where there were Egyptian cotton sheets on the bed, and a high loft comforter spoke to him of luxury. He drew the curtains and crawled under the duvet, falling asleep as his head hit the pillow.

  Chapter Eight

  Glen marveled at Mia’s grasp of the city. She remembered the layout of the streets and walked them unerringly, winding around the dregs of humanity who appeared to be living everywhere, in one case in a tent in the middle of the street. And why not, he supposed. If the shuttle was the only car with fuel, what was the harm in setting up in the middle of a side street? Many families were living in vehicles, from city buses to mini-vans, and he couldn’t help but wonder why? There must be thousands of unoccupied homes and apartments. According to his comrades in New Town, millions had died in the immediate aftermath of the EMP.

  Passengers had died in vehicles that still had momentum but whose drivers had not been able to steer and had careened off the roads. People in places that relied on air being pumped to them, like miners and deepwater divers, had suffocated. Patients had died on operating tables or in hospital beds attached to machines that no longer could keep them alive. People had been trapped in airplanes that had dropped from the sky, and still more had been crushed by those same planes.