American Apocalypse (19 page)

Max switched the radio off. “No matter. We’re almost there.”

We were out in the country somewhere. Country in this part of the world meant a house, or cluster of houses, every half mile or so. He turned down a gravel road that quickly went to washouts and dust. We pulled up in front of an old house that had an unattached sheetmetal garage. Behind it was a single-wide mobile home with a satellite dish. A long orange extension cord ran from the house to the mobile home. There were kid’s toys scattered at random and on the other side of the house, a surprisingly large garden with a chain-link fence around it. A flock of chickens were inside the fence, pecking bugs and fertilizing the crops. A truck, an old minivan, and a white Toyota—maybe a Corolla—were parked next to the house.

Max hit the horn twice. The front door opened and a white man in his late twenties stepped out onto the porch, looked at us, smiled widely, and yelled something back into the house. Max held out his hand: “Take these and tuck them away”—I looked down at two Canadian one-ounce gold coins—“Remember, you can cut these into pieces. The pieces will spend just as well.”

“You sure you want to give me all this, Max?”

“We can balance it out later. For now, you need emergency funds.”

He yelled out the window, “Hey Tommy! You got room in your garage for this truck?”

“Hey, Sarge. Sure! Let me open her up.”

He yelled at the dogs to shut up and moved at a jog toward the garage. We pulled inside and Max turned off the truck engine. “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine.” Then he opened the door, greeting Tommy, who gave him a big hug. “Goddamn, it is good to see you again!” They pounded on each other for a minute or two.

“So, this is the man in here?” He peered through the driver side window at me. “Yep, he looks like he’s seen better days. Nice leg wound, Bub.”

I smiled and said, “Thanks.”

“Sorry about that conversation, Max. I know what I owe you.” He ran his hand across his face. “It’s just the kids are sick. The wife ran off. Money is real tight, and it don’t look like work is coming back anytime soon. I should have stayed in the Corps.” He sighed. “Don’t you worry, though. We’ll take care of the boy. He’ll be fine here. Shit, I don’t know what got into me. You were like a brother over there to me.”

“Forget about it. I already have. Here.”

He slipped Tommy a gold coin. “If you need more, let me know. I want you to take good care of my brother.” He stressed the
brother
enough that Tommy got the point. I was surprised how happy it made me feel.

“Right, Sarge. Let’s get him into the guesthouse. Donna is in the big house looking after the kids. She will meet us there, if she isn’t there already.” They helped me out of the truck and across the yard into the mobile home. The
steps were tough. Inside, it was obvious that the place functioned as a storage space and a craft factory. At least it had once upon a time.

It must have been the missing wife’s work space. She had been into Chinese plastic doodads in a major way. Plastic packing peanuts were strewn all over the floor. They made a crunchy sound as we walked over them. My shoe was leaving bloody footprints, since my jean leg was soaked and my sneaker was filled with blood. There was just too much for even big gauze pads to deal with.

“I cleaned up the bedroom a bit. The bathroom works. Just don’t use the microwave. You will blow the circuits in the house.”

Yeah,
I thought,
like I am really in a rush to make popcorn
.

“The TV works, and it’s hooked up to the satellite so you can actually get channels on it.” People were still pissed about the switchover to digital years later.

He put a big, black trash bag onto the covers of the bed. “All right. Get the gun off and lie down.” I pulled my gun belt off and handed it to Max. Then I lowered myself onto the bed. It felt good. Real good. I heard the door open and Max pulled my Ruger out of the holster and cocked it.

A bright, cheery “Hello,” the
tip-tap
of shoes, and my nurse appeared in the doorway. “I think you can put that away,” she said. Max dropped the hammer and holstered it.

“Hey, Donna.”

“Hey, Tommy. So this is the patient. My God! That looks like it hurts. It’s okay, Tommy, no need for introductions.”

“Oh, yeah. This is Donna.” Donna sat on the edge of the bed and undid the tourniquet. She set a bag down
next to me that she had brought in and began taking out bandages, dressings, and glass vials. She lined them all up neatly. “This guy is Max. The guy on the bed is Gardener.”

“Hi, Gardener. Hi, Max—Tommy get me some hot water, really hot water, a couple towels, and scissors.” She smiled at me; it was a nice smile. “Don’t worry—I’ve seen worse.”

Tommy’s sister-in-law was Asian, or maybe Eurasian, around five feet four and probably not much over a hundred pounds. She was also attractive, a plus in the medical professional, I always thought.

Tommy headed for the door. Max said, “I am going to go help Tommy. I’ll be back to see you before I go.” As they left I heard Max ask Tommy, “You got any coffee?” and they were gone.

“Okay, Gardener. What bit your leg?”

I laughed. “A rake.”

“Hmmm . . . you had a tetanus shot lately?”

Good question. “Yeah, about six years ago.”

“Then you’re okay for that.” She didn’t say anymore. She took off my old compresses and disappeared. She reappeared with a towel. “Here,”—handing me the towel—“put this under you for now.” Tommy came back, carrying a steaming hot bowl, which he cradled with towels. He set it down carefully by Donna. “Thank you, Tommy.”

“You’re welcome. The scissors are there, too.” He backed up a couple steps. “How are you feeling, Bub?”

“Tommy?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t call me Bub; call me by my name, okay?”

“Sure,” he held up his hands. “No offense, just a habit.”

“None taken.”

“Okay, Tommy. I think you’re done here.” She fished around in her bag and then stood up. “Why don’t you run to the store and get some sandwich stuff for us and Mr. Gardener. The refrigerator still work in here?”

“Not the big one,” Tommy replied. “The little one on top of the cabinet does.”

“Good. Pick up some water and the sandwich stuff. We can put some in the refrigerator here. That way he doesn’t have to come over to the house for now. Thanks.” She handed him some folded paper notes. He was turning to leave when she called out, “And Tommy, pick up a sixpack of decent beer. Not that cut-rate soda water you’ve been drinking.” He laughed and left. “Do you drink beer, Mr. Gardener?”

“No, and please, call me Gardener.”

“Well, you are going to wish you had a few after I start cleaning these out. We are going to take care of the leg, then I am going to look at those hands and knees.” She had me lift up enough so she could slide another towel under me. “Okay, good. Let’s get these boots off. Then I need you to disrobe below the waist. Please cover yourself with this towel.”

She turned around while I did what she had asked. When I was done I said, “Okay ma’am you can turn around.” First she cleaned my bloody, grubby flesh with the hot water. That was quite soothing. The pain was like radio static while the hot water was the music that made it through.

“You okay?” she asked. I nodded.

It was almost, not quite, worth it to have fallen on the rake. She ignored the tent that somehow had appeared. As she worked she explained to me that she used a lot of
homeopathic remedies, which I found interesting. “Okay, now this might sting. The antiseptic that she poured liberally over the puncture wounds stung enough that I arched my back and bit my tongue. “You still all right?”

“I’m fine,” I told her.

“Now I need you to take these. It is hypericum. This will help prevent tetanus, stop bacteria from forming, and help any nerve damage.” She opened a small vial. “This is tea tree oil. I am going to put it on the punctures to prevent infection.” She then did the same thing to my knees and hands. “That gravel will fall out on its own over time.” She then bandaged the puncture wounds. “I am going to leave the hands and knees open. Fresh air will help them more than bandages at this point. Do you have any clothes?”

“No, not really.”

“Okay, I will talk to Tommy.” She began packing up her kit. “I will be back in a few days to take a look at it. If we can avoid infection, then you should be fine. Pour some tea oil on it twice a day and change the bandages. I will leave what you need in the kitchen.” Then she was gone.

I went to sleep. I woke up briefly when Tommy came and filled the refrigerator. He didn’t look in on me, and I drifted back to sleep. I woke up late the next morning. The trailer was stuffy, hot, and smelled of tea oil. My thigh, where the puncture wounds were, was turning pink. I was not a doctor but I knew what that meant. Hopefully, the tea oil would get ahead of it. I hobbled out to the kitchen and slapped some baloney between a couple slices of white bread and wolfed it down. I took a bottle of water and drained it.
Damn
, I needed coffee. I was going to have to talk to Tommy about that.

I looked around and started opening windows. Little Styrofoam peanuts crunched under my feet. I wandered into the living room, found the remote, and clicked on the TV, wishing that I had a laptop. Instead, I was going to have to make do with satellite news. The feed was from DirecTV. What was left of American media news channels was and had been a joke for quite a while. CNN might have made a difference but the passing of the National Communications Act had muzzled them. Actually, it had worked against the authorities in some ways. Now, when CNN said they were going to air a hard-hitting exposé of college terrorism, you knew that Homeland Security was beginning an operation to crack down on student dissidents.

The major European and Asian countries that produced news shows in English were sometimes a good source of information. You had to filter out the home country’s agenda, which was often America bashing, to get to the truth. At one time Homeland Security had tried to block their broadcasts, but it had not worked. Instead, someone had a better idea. The approved channels, especially the network alphabet ones, had sexed up the news. Now, it was soft news and porn. They knew how to keep Joe Six-Pack’s eyes focused on their message.

Two weeks later I was sitting on the wooden steps outside my front door soaking up a little bit of sun. I was watching the kids play. It was my first time outside since I had arrived here. The infection had spread fast, and I had ended up on my back for over a week as Donna took care of me. I had an IV drip of antibiotics for five days, plus injections of them. The skin had rotted around each puncture, each hole combined into one long strip of rotted flesh. The smell was not unlike that of a decomposing body. For the last two days, medical maggots had been busy in the wound, cleaning it up. I gave Donna one of my gold coins to pay for the IV and medications. When she told me it was too much, I told her to buy food for everyone at the house. Gold went a long way now. Once upon a time there had been a credit price and a cash price. Now there was a cash price and a gold price.

The kids were funny. The boy was seven; the girl was six. They were both cute. They had their mom’s dark hair and eyes and their father’s features. One day they were running back and forth on the grass in front of me, gradually
working their way closer to me despite their father shouting, “Leave him alone!” I thought it would be the boy who would make first contact. I was wrong. Somehow the ball they were playing with ended up rolling to a stop five feet away from me.

“Hey, mister! Throw it to us, please!” This was the little girl.

“I can’t,” I replied. They both edged closer.

“Why can’t you?” asked the little girl.

“Because I can’t walk that good.”

“He hurt his leg,” announced the boy.

“Yes, I did.” Then I went on to field, oh, at least fifty questions.

They didn’t notice their dad walking up to us. We made eye contact. I nodded to let him know I was okay with it.

“Daddy, can he eat dinner with us?”

The girl asked this. He nodded his assent, and I began eating dinner with them each night. I also started weeding the garden, and I learned how to find eggs and chop firewood. Tommy explained how you could never have enough firewood when you had wood heat. Sometimes Donna would come eat with us. Afterward we would sit out on the porch and talk while the kids ran around and the dogs chased each other, or their tails. It was a good time for me. Maybe the best time in my life up to that point. Sometimes Donna would teach me how to identify common weeds, and then teach me what they could be used for. I learned that, as with people, there was really no common weed.

I convinced Tommy to give me a ride into town. I needed to use the local library computers to send and
check e-mail. I didn’t want to send mail too often from a static IP address. Tommy had a computer, but he kept it in his office. I had used it to do some research, and there had been no news about any deaths at the colonel’s. I thought hard about convincing Tommy to let me move the computer into the trailer but I decided against it. In the brief time I had used it, I had discovered that it was his sex life. He already had one woman run off. I didn’t want to ask him to give up another.

I did find a couple local blogs that had posts about how the colonel’s retreat was one of the bright spots in the local economy. They were buying farm tractors from anyone who would sell. They were also buying old equipment—old, as in horse-drawn antiques—and they were doing a lot of building. Nothing big or fancy: underground fuel tanks, small inexpensive houses with solar heating, windmills. They were open about it, and they were getting good publicity as a result.

I was also hoping to find a used bookstore in town. I wanted the rest of the
Decline of Rome
series. I had never read much before but the desire was now burning inside me. I read everything that Tommy had. Most of the books he had dug out of boxes in his basement. From the printing dates inside they must have been his grandfather’s or grandmother’s. I asked him, but he didn’t have a clue.