A Distant Eden (3 page)

Yet though Fred would not listen, Roman had to keep trying to get through. “On average the human body will die or become inoperative within three or four days without water. That will be the first primal motivation: thirst. Thirst is going to hit soon, and hard. People are going to start moving to whatever bodies of water are near them. Rivers, creeks, lakes, whatever they can get to. But it will be untreated water. Dysentery will become nearly universal, and then will come cholera and typhoid—diseases caused by unsanitary conditions. Those fortunate enough to survive all of that will be riddled with intestinal parasites.

“Tens of millions of people are going to die from thirst and panic and disease before they started starving. Even with water, the average human body will cease to function within three to four weeks without food. Fred, history has shown starving people take to their feet, become frantic in search of food, and will walk miles every day. Hundreds of millions of starving people, people sick from contaminated water and weakened by hunger, vulnerable to any sickness that comes along, will start walking out of the cities. You will be in their path.”

Roman believed from his studies that the best that could be hoped for was a three percent survival rate. Ninety-seven out of every one hundred people were going to die within the next year. Those people just standing around their stalled cars were already as good as dead. Fred wasn’t going to make it; he wasn’t trying to understand. He was refusing to understand on purpose.

At times they were able to reach fifty miles per hour, even in limp mode. They would be slowed down on the up hills and speed up on the down hills.

Roman knew the food supply he had built up would support his family for a long time. Every bite of food that he might give to anyone else would extend that person’s life by a few hours, but was also shortening the lives of his own family members. Ethics and morality had nothing to do with it; the calculus of survival would inform Roman’s actions from now on.

Roman quit talking. They were nearing the point where he would drop Fred off—and he frankly couldn’t wait—when he saw a highway patrol car. It was on the side of the road, stalled. As Roman came close, the patrolman stepped out into the middle of the right lane and held his arms up for Roman to stop. Roman had no intention of stopping and moved over to the left lane. The patrolman waved more frantically—and then Fred grabbed the wheel, screaming at Roman to stop and wrestling with it. Roman slammed the brakes, and the truck skidded to a sideways stop just feet from the patrolman, who now had his pistol out and aimed it right at Roman’s head. Roman ducked just as the patrolman fired. The bullet missed Roman’s head by a fraction of an inch and went out the windshield.

Roman snapped his own pistol up and pulled the trigger. His .45 caliber hollow point hit the patrolman in the chest and he went down, dropping his pistol. Roman jumped out of the truck and ran to the officer. One look told him the man wouldn’t survive. Fred walked up beside them as the officer said hoarsely, “Only wanted a ride,” and died.

Fred was shaking. Looking at him with disgust, Roman demanded, “Just what the hell did you think you were doing? I was going around him!”

Fred said, “He’s a police officer. He was signaling for us to stop and you kept going. You were supposed to stop.”

Roman, angrier than he had ever been, snarled, “You idiot—you stupid bumbling idiot—you almost got me killed and you damn sure killed him. If you hadn’t pulled that stunt we would have been past him no problem. You’re getting out here; I don’t want you near me again. I’ve been trying to tell you but you won’t listen. Civilization as you have known it is gone, completely and utterly gone. There are no policemen anymore. There is no government. This is just another man with no authority over anyone. He wanted to steal my truck and set me on foot. You’re going to die a slow, horrible death because you won’t wake up to reality—you and your wife. Your best bet is to shoot your wife and kill yourself—it’ll save you both needless suffering.”

Fred stared at Roman in open-mouthed shock as Roman got back into his truck, slammed the door and drove off, shaking with anger. As he topped the hill, Fred was still in the middle of the road, mute and dumbstruck.

Half an hour later and at the crest of another rise, Roman noticed that there wasn’t a stalled car within sight in either direction—although there were columns of rising smoke in all directions. It would be a good place to wait for dark. He pulled over to the side, packed his backpack, and headed for the nearby trees, pistol and truck keys in hand.

Only one vehicle drove past, although several men and women walked past. They did not give Roman’s truck more than a glance. As the sun set, the sky became filled with the eerie green shifting glow from the Aurora Borealis. He knew that a solar storm strong enough to cause cars to stall out was probably stronger than the 1859 storm. He had expected that he would be seeing the Northern Lights tonight. In 1859, the lights had been so strong that people had read newspapers by their glow. Roman had hoped they would be bright all the way down to Texas. If they were, he would be able to drive without headlights, giving less warning that he was approaching to anyone inclined to stop him.

He was right; the Northern Lights were bright enough to drive by, almost like driving by a full moon, something he had not done since courting Sarah. Roman drove on home without further incident. He passed several groups of people walking down the highway, some of whom waved hysterically at him, some gathered around bonfires—but none of them appeared to be armed and no one tried to stop him. Most of them just seemed to be in a mental fugue. He passed a lot of brush fires that had been set by hot electrical wires and exploding transformers. And he passed several houses burning.

When finally he arrived home, Sarah ran out from the house carrying a shotgun, just as Roman had taught her. They hugged hard for a long time without saying anything. Now that he was home safe, she started worrying about their children and grandchildren. Soon trouble would arrive at their doorstep.

Adrian Hunter stood at attention with his platoon while they received their immediate marching orders. They were to march to the barracks and grab their gear, then march in formation to the arms room to draw their rifles and ammunition. Then they were to march in formation to the motor pool, climb aboard the deuce and a half trucks that would be waiting to transport them to the choppers, climb into the choppers, strap themselves in and ride. When the choppers landed they were to assume that they were landing in a hot LZ, get off the choppers and hit the ground, assess the situation and wait for the lieutenant to provide further instructions; most likely to set an immediate perimeter, taking advantage of whatever terrain they had available.

Adrian loved the army. One reason was because the army left nothing to chance. The army told you what, when, how, how much, how often, where, and everything you needed to know except why. The army wasn’t much on explaining why.

“Why” was always the subject of intense rumor. There were three kinds of “why” rumors that cropped up. The first was the completely false rumor; the one manufactured for amusement. These were generally designed to frighten, but were ridiculous upon consideration and provided needed laughter. Roman would always fondly remember the rumor that was spread during his first days of introduction to the army. As they were lined up to begin receiving inoculations, word spread that the final shot would be with a square needle into the left testicle. Three men passed out on hearing it.

Then there were the speculative rumors. Mere guesses that were all over the place and rarely came close to accuracy.

Last, and best, were the semi-informed rumors. These were generally started by senior NCOs who overheard officers talking or glimpsed paperwork somewhere. This information would be passed on to the other NCOs, and then the rest of the troops. Ultimately the more accurate and most sought after were spread by company clerks. If a rumor could be traced to a company clerk, it was gold. Company clerks actually ran the army, and everyone except the officers knew it. The NCOs were careful not to allow the officers to know this truth; things just worked better that way.

Adrian had this one pegged; it came directly from their company clerk. The Post Commander, as a result of the recent grid failure, had dispatched combat teams by helicopter to food warehouse complexes. The troops were to seize and hold the warehouses while waiting for the transport group to show up with trucks and additional men. Transport was scrambling at the same moment. They were putting together heavily armed convoys that would go out, commandeer commercial freight trucks, get them running, and bring them to the secured warehouses.

The trucks would be loaded with non-perishable foods and driven back with armed escorts to Fort Hood, unloaded, and sent back to the warehouses. Repeat until warehouses were empty. Simultaneously other heavily armed helicopter and convoy groups were heading towards fuel storage depots, to do the same thing with fuel. According to the company clerk, Fort Hood had, on average, fifty thousand troops stationed there, and another fifty thousand dependents. One hundred thousand mouths ate a lot, and it normally took just two weeks to whittle through Ford Hood’s entire inventory of supplies.

The Post Commander knew that with the grid down, no more food would be in-coming. Either he sent troops out to get food, or there would be mass starvation on Post. Adrian suspected that this was a well-vetted contingency plan from way back. The probability of a major solar storm wiping out civilization had been known for many years. It had been the subject of multiple congressional hearings, although Congress had never taken any action. It was just lucky that the army was excellent at contingency plans. No doubt this one had been named “Operation Full Stomachs” or something creative like that.

Adrian was sitting in the open door of the chopper with his legs hanging out. He would be the first on the ground. This was a position of honor. At twenty-four years old, he was in the prime of his life. He was in exceptional physical condition. He had been trained in the toughest combat schools the army had, and excelled in each of them. He had two full combat tours behind him and numerous secret missions. Adrian had seen more than his share of combat; he had dispatched more than his share of enemy combatants—under some of the worst conditions imaginable. He was completely cold and ruthless when under fire. His men would follow him anywhere, anytime, without question.

Adrian was also the army’s top hand-to-hand fighter, as had been determined in a number of unofficial underground bouts. This was in no small part due to the fact that his neural system, by chance of birth, operated significantly faster than normal. His reaction time was less than half that of his nearest competitor, and six times faster than the average person.

Yet despite this, when off-duty Adrian was as laid back as a California surfer. He was sixth generation Texan on both sides of his family tree, and was as laconic and mild-mannered as the stereotypical Texas cowboy of old. With his six foot four inch whip chord muscled frame, he looked dangerous and tough. He was rarely hassled in bars. Men instinctively respected him and women were instinctively drawn to him. The women were attracted to his calm self-assured manner, sense of humor, and his rugged good looks.

As the chopper came in, Adrian hit the ground running. He ran fifty feet and took a prone position. Behind him, the lieutenant and the rest of the team spread out into a circle facing outward. The other choppers came in and dropped off more men. There was no incoming fire. Only a few civilians looking at them with huge eyes. Adrian and the lieutenant huddled, then re-deployed the men, with some taking guard duty around the warehouse complex and some moving into each of the warehouses, doing recon and secure. Within thirty minutes the entire complex was secured and the civilians in and around the warehouses had been removed.

The lieutenant radioed back to base with a status update as they dug in for several days of waiting. They established patrol routes, guard positions, schedules and the other one-hundred-and-one details that were standard operating procedure for such excursions. Adrian assigned a detail to set up a field kitchen and feed the men from the food in the warehouse. They had brought their own drinking water.

Roman awoke the next morning after a restless and fitful sleep. He was still in shock over what was happening. Although he had been semi-prepared for this most of his life, he had never deep down believed it would happen. It had been an interesting idea, surviving an apocalypse. He had taken preparatory steps out of a sense that it would be foolish not to. Imagine if after all that study he had not made any preparations at all—how crazy would that be?

He did not have a lot of money so he could not buy a remote ranch, or build deep concrete bunkers, or purchase huge supplies of stock. Instead he had done what he could, and though it was much more than almost everyone else, it wasn’t enough to guarantee his survival; just enough to assure a good start that with hard work, smart thinking and good luck might provide for survival. Maybe.

Maybe was the big word in survival. Maybe he had thought of the right things, maybe he had stocked the right things, and maybe luck would be on his side. Nothing was certain. He had given his children three months of food supplies, a ham radio and power inverters wrapped in foil, water-purifying tablets, first aid kits, and written instructions. All of this had seemed over the top to his children. Shirley and Jerry had gently teased him about it. It was plain to Roman that his children loved him dearly while at the same time thinking that he was nuts. They took the items home to appease him, then gave it no more thought.

Roman knew that Adrian was one tough, hard core army soldier. Adrian was the only one Roman hadn’t given supplies to; in the army barracks, he would have nowhere to store them. Besides, Adrian was well trained in survival and would only be slowed down by that kind of materiel. Adrian had standing orders from Roman. If the time came, get to Roman’s house as soon as he could. Adrian’s parents, Roman’s brother and sister-in-law, had passed on years before and Roman had done his best to fill his brother’s shoes as a stand in father figure. Roman had done what he could in that regard, but Adrian...well, Adrian was a special case. He was a pretty much stand-alone kind of guy. Adrian had appreciated the efforts and was extremely fond of his uncle, but would go his own way.