Cry Havoc (3 page)

“Yeah, well what Jane doesn't know won't hurt her, right?”

Polly winks at me and I feel as if my heart has forgotten to beat as my breath catches in my throat. Is she talking about smoking? Or something else? Something more?

“Uh, yeah...  I guess. I mean, I won't tell her or anything.”

She takes another drag off the cigarette and the ember glows like a meteor just before it begins to burn up in the atmosphere. The apartment is so quiet that I can hear the tobacco crackle slightly as she inhales and I wonder if she can hear the way my heart is pounding in my chest....

“So what do
you
make of all this, Richard?” she finally asks. “Every time we talk about it, you kinda clam up. I mean, you take part in the conversation, don't get me wrong. But you never really share your thoughts, you know?”

I lean back in my chair and look up at the ceiling for what seems to be an eternity before committing myself to an answer.

“The way I see it, people just don't give a damn any more. I mean, it would be easy if we could blame this on some kind of disease. Some virus or something. At least then it would kind of make sense.”

Polly nods her head as she flicks her ashes into the yogurt cup. But she stays silent, letting me talk. If I'd been having this conversation with Jane right now, you can bet she would've already had some little counter to what I'd said. Maybe something along the lines of not enough research being done to entirely discount a viral theory. But Polly, God bless her, was content to simply listen and smoke. Which was good. It gave me a chance to actually sort out and piece together the scattered thoughts that had been going through my mind over the last several weeks. To try to form some kind of coherent reasoning.

“But this? This is scarier. A disease can be cured. An infection can be stopped.”

“So, if not a disease...  then what?”

I reach across the table and pull her pack of cigarettes toward me. She raises her eyebrows but doesn't really say anything as I fish one out and light up my own. The smoke feels scratchy in my throat and my eyes immediately start to water. But God, it feels good...  like running into an old lover who you haven't thought of in years only to find that old spark still exists.

“You want to know what I really think?”

I feel slightly woozy from the nicotine. Or maybe from Polly's scent, so maddeningly close. Or maybe both.

“What I think is that civilization is this really fragile thing. I mean, we have laws that were designed to protect us. But the only reason those laws work is because the majority of people
want
to be good. They
want
to have order. They
choose
to obey...  and that's what makes our society function.”

“Well, you got to keep in mind that if you break those laws you go to jail, Richard. Fear of losing freedom...  that's a pretty strong incentive, isn't it?”

Her voice sounds husky and soft, like a starlet from some old film noir movie. I take another draw from my cigarette and hold the smoke in, using it as an excuse to simply admire her for a moment without needing to continue the conversation. She really is beautiful: those high cheeks bones, that perfect nose, the creases in her brow....

“Not really.” I finally say. “I mean, let's face it. There's a lot more normal people than there are cops and soldiers. If everyone decided, all at the same time, to simply do whatever the hell they wanted there really wouldn't be anything the authorities could do about it.”

Polly narrows her eyes and chews on her bottom lip for a moment as she thinks over what I'd said. For the first time, I see a hint of fear touch her eyes. As if she'd finally realized that this was something more than just an intellectual exercise.

“And you think that's what's happening? That people are just...  well, just
giving up
on society?”

“It's the only thing that makes any sense. At least, to me. And that, my dear, is precisely why I can't get to sleep tonight. In a nutshell.”

Polly glances over her shoulder, almost as if she's afraid that some shadow might be sneaking up behind her.  She rubs her arms briskly and even in the darkness of the kitchen I can see the goose bumps creeping along her soft flesh.

I know that I've been laying it on a bit thick, spacing out my words with dramatic pauses and speaking in tones normally reserved for melodramatic b-films. But, to be perfectly honest, there's kind of a small thrill in knowing that you've entirely captivated a beautiful woman. Knowing that a seed of fear has been planted and that maybe, just maybe, somewhere deep in the back of her mind she is seeing you as a potential hero. Someone who'll protect her and make sure that nothing bad ever darkens her doorstep.

“If you're right...  and I'm not saying you are, mind you...  but if you are then there's really no hope , is there?”

“Honey, I don't think there's been any hope for a long, long time. And that's precisely why we find ourselves in this current predicament.”

CHAPTER THREE

The smell of smoke still hangs heavy in the air, thick and greasy, like the ghost of a refinery explosion. I wonder to myself how long it will take for that particular stink to dissipate, for the air to simply smell normal again? Even the warm breeze that blows across the streets doesn't do much to help scatter the stench. Instead, it's almost as if the wind is scooping it up from the burnt out shells of buildings, carrying it down alleys and throughways, and depositing it into a cloud that hangs just over our heads.

Stay within the yellow lines....

The voice from the loudspeaker sounds as emotionless and cold as a computer. Hell, for all I know it could actually be one. After all, I can't really see a microphone or anyone speaking the words. Just these drab green cones attached to every tenth telephone pole, a thin black wire stringing them together and disappearing somewhere into the distance.

Anyone straying from the yellow lines will be dealt with immediately.

Soldiers stroll up and down the sidewalks, machine guns slung over their shoulders as their eyes scan the crowd for even the slightest ripple of discontent. A few look scared, as if they're afraid the assemblage will suddenly fall upon them and rip the weapons from their hands before they've even managed to squeeze off a shot; but most of them all wear the same solemn, tight lipped expression of neutrality.

The use of deadly force has been authorized. I repeat...  the use of deadly force has been authorized.

I've been standing in line for nearly an hour now and have only moved forward a block or so. My kidneys feel as if someone is plunging knives into them and my bladder is demanding relief as I curse myself for not having the foresight to take a leak before leaving the house.

Please have your ration card and identification at the ready. Keep the line moving in an orderly fashion.

By now I know the spiel well enough that I could recite it word for word, pausing in all the right places for just the right amount of time. Which is really no mean feat: it's basically the same message, after all, repeated over and over as we shuffle forward.

Do not attempt to make contact with the soldiers protecting you.

Protecting. That's a good one. It feels more like they're herding us. It's all too easy to imagine that this long string of people are nothing more than livestock. That once we round the corner we'll have little tags affixed to our ears and be loaded into cattle cars. Shipped off to slaughterhouses and processed for consumption.

Do not attempt to make contact with those in front of or behind you.

Christ Almighty, I should have gotten more sleep last night. Everything looks grainy and my eyes feel as if I've got little pieces of grit trapped in them. Grit that scratches and itches and burns.

Stay within the yellow lines....

It's Polly's fault, really. She kept me talking in the kitchen, kept asking all those questions about what I thought, how I felt, what my opinion was on this or that: and every so often she'd drop her cigarette and bend over to pick it up. The neckline of her shirt would sag and I could see nipples like little pencil erasers on these firm, round breasts. The first time it happened I thought maybe it was just an accident, that she'd simply grown comfortable enough around me to not realize how she was exposing herself; the second time, however, I began to wonder if maybe she were doing it on purpose. If she
wanted
me to see those beautiful mounds of flesh. So I kept finding reasons to stay up longer, new topics to discuss with her. All in the hopes of seeing if she would drop another cigarette. Or the lighter. Or the lid to her water bottle.

Anyone straying from the yellow lines will be dealt with immediately.

I ended up with around two hours of sleep, I'd say. Not nearly enough. I feel like every muscle in my body is wound up as tightly as a spring; I'm tired, cranky, and I really, really have to piss. But, as I'm so often reminded, I'm not allowed to ask the soldiers if there's any way I can use the bathroom. I'm not even allowed to step outside the damn yellow line.

The use of deadly force has been authorized. I repeat...  

Yeah, yeah, I know: the use of deadly force has been authorized. But to be perfectly honest I would almost be willing to take a bullet right now as long as it pierced my bladder and relieved some of this fucking pressure. Next time, Cody comes for the supplies. Let that little weasel deal with this shit while I stay home, all snug and secure with a bathroom only feet away.

Please have your ration card and identification at the ready. Keep the line moving in an orderly fashion.

 
Do not attempt to make contact with the soldiers protecting you.

Do not attempt to make contact with those in front of or behind you.

Stay within the yellow lines....

By the time I'd made it to the little tent with the desk beneath, it was too late. I simply couldn't hold out any longer. Warmth spread across the crotch of my jeans and trickled down my thighs as the sharp stench of urine filled the air like a pungent cloud. Luckily, I'd worn dark jeans so it wasn't obvious where the source of the smell was coming from. It could have been the old man in front of me. Or the lady who kept stepping on the heel of my shoe every time we managed to take a few steps forward.

“Ration card and identification.”

I handed the soldier the requested documents and noticed that his nose wrinkled slightly, as if the smell of my piss stung his nostrils. Good. Served the bastard right.

He glanced from my ID to my face and then back to the ID again.

“Richard W. Hall?”

I'd nodded my head, unclear as to whether answering his questions would be considered making contact with one of the soldiers protecting me.

He sighed as if he had been through this same routine a thousand times and in that fraction of a second I realized that this man hated his job. And, for some reason, I gleaned a bit of satisfaction from that realization; as if this somehow knocked him down to the same level as me and the long line of people stretching back and around the corner.

“You're going to have to speak to answer my questions. It's okay, understand? It's okay to talk to
me
. Now...  what's your address and social security number, Mr. Hall?”

Amazing. Even when things are literally falling apart around you, the bureaucracy rolls on and on.

After verifying all of my information to the man's satisfaction, another soldier pulled a large box from the back of a truck and dropped it into my arms. The thing felt as heavy as a small child and I was assured that there was enough inside to last a full week if we doled it out wisely; another officer would be around in the future to issue a new ration card and I, or someone else residing in my household, could come back next week at the same time and location to claim further supplies.

As I staggered along the streets, I began to feel eyes upon me. I could sense the other people looking at my box of food and necessities, could almost feel their desire to possess it like a beam of warmth penetrating my skull.  Even though my back ached from carting this huge box around, I tried to rise to my full height, to puff my chest out in the hopes that it might be mistaken for muscle. Don't get me wrong: I don't think I could be considered in any way, shape, or form to be weak. A little out of shape maybe. Forty hours of pushing a mouse around every week for the last seven years will do that to a man. Your belly ends up getting a little rounder and you lose some of the tone that used to make your biceps as taut as piano wires. But out here on the streets, where violence could break out as easily as you might sneeze, every little advantage helped. So if there was any way I could make it seem like there might be an easier target then, by God, I was going to take it.

Still, I didn't like being out in the open. I kept thinking that I heard someone's footsteps running up behind me, imaging someone's breath on the back of my neck, mistaking my own shadow for someone else's. Every few seconds I stole a glance over my shoulder and felt a little of the tension in my shoulders release when I realized that the other people were still just standing on the sidewalk or were ducking into their own houses and apartments. So I continued walking. But within a few minutes I wondered: is that the echo of my own footsteps bouncing off the buildings? Or someone else's? Someone trying to mirror my pace, to disguise the sound of their approach beneath my own little noises? And then the entire scene would replay itself like a bad loop film.

So that's why I'm standing here now, glancing back and forth from the street ahead to the little alley to my left. The street has the advantage of being patrolled by police and soldiers; but there's still no guarantee that I won't be attacked. When the violence flares, the people taking part in it are like a packs of wild dogs. They pounce upon the victim with speed and cunning, their ferocity and the element of surprise helping to isolate their prey even further. I've seen this time and time again on news broadcasts and reality cop shows. One moment it's just like any other day. Everything is quiet, life goes on as it always has. Next thing you know, a mob of people explode in a flurry of aggression, flailing with fists and feet and teeth and nails. If it's not put down quickly, it grows like a force of nature...  like a whirlwind that sucks people into its vortex...  and suddenly the entire street is filled with screams and breaking glass and the blood begins to flow long before the first sirens ever start to respond.