The Alliance (16 page)

I’ve known guys like Charlie before, and it’s better to lie low and ignore them. Otherwise they’ll know they’re getting to you, which only makes it more fun for them. So I just keep looking down at the map that’s spread across the hood of Charlie’s truck, circling the area where he remembers seeing the armory on a side road branching off Main Street. The same street where we intersected with the gang; therefore, we’re hoping we’ll have better luck avoiding them by going into town during the day versus at night.

The Silverado—now part of the blockade—is parked next to the Colorado woman’s Mercedes SUV, which looks as abandoned as it is, with its tinted windows and black paint job glazed with dust. The sight of it makes me depressed, thinking of her family that will forever be haunted by her loss while I’m already struggling to remember her name.

“We going to do this thing or not?” I ask, shouldering my backpack.

Charlie tightens the straps of his matching backpack and stands behind me, zipping open compartments and counting everything before zipping them shut again—making me feel like he’s an overbearing father making sure his kindergartner is prepared for his first day of school. But I figure
I might as well let him, since he’s the one who got me set up in the first place. He was even so generous as to give me an MRE—Meal, Ready-to-Eat—that has enough calories to put blubber on a whale. Who cares that the food’s expiration date is ’06, or that the cheese squished from the tube is a strange nuclear orange? Charlie swears that expiration dates don’t matter on MREs, as long as everything’s sealed tight.

“Where’s my pipe bomb launcher?” he asks, like he’s asking for a stick of gum.

“In the back of the Suburban.”

“Good boy.” Charlie hooks a camo hat backward over my head, which I take off and stack on the pile by our feet. For years, Charlie’s been lugging around this arsenal of stuff that he picked up at different Salvation Army stores, so that the covered bed of his truck looks like some life-size GI Joes went skinny-dipping over yonder and left their clothes behind. Charlie makes excuses for what we guys call his “play clothes” because he says he knew things were going to turn sour, so he wanted to make sure he was prepared whenever they did. I bet he never thought he’d be stuck in a pacifist Mennonite community when they did go sour, though.

It’s about the biggest contradiction you can imagine: this redneck Rambo, who’s bent on blasting anything that moves, confined to the rules of a community that doesn’t
want us to hurt a fly. But I know why Charlie stays, and it’s not only because he thinks he’s the ringleader of our rough-and-ready militia. It’s because he has no one else around here, not even a dog, and surviving can be a lonely business when you’re doing it by yourself. I know because after I came home from the desert and cut myself off from the rest of society, that’s exactly what I tried.

“Jabil gonna meet us at the Suburban?” Charlie asks. The same question he’s asked and I’ve answered about a thousand times. I’m starting to think it’s a nervous tic—a way to fill up the stagnant air until we get moving again. Over at Field to Table, I hear Henri slam the Suburban’s hood. He crosses over to us, wiping grease from his stained hands. I notice a gold wedding band gleaming against the grime, but he’s never mentioned a wife. I guess some people might be grateful for the separating effects of the EMP.

“Everything looks good,” he says. “But it’s been hot-wired, so the ignition’s ripped—”

Charlie interrupts, “I know about hot-wiring.” I look over at him and raise an eyebrow. Despite his bandolier of bullets, shining like the pirate caps on his back teeth, and camo bandanna, Charlie reminds me of an overeager Boy Scout, not someone who skulks around town, hot-wiring vehicles. He acknowledges my look and shrugs. “I read about it somewhere.”

It wouldn’t surprise me a lick if Charlie’s one of those
eccentric geniuses who has the social skills of a hermit but who could’ve invented the lightbulb if Thomas Edison hadn’t gotten to it first. I’m grateful he’s taken a good look at the map. If we lose it, maybe his photographic memory can recall where we’re supposed to go—and more importantly, where we’re
not
.

About halfway up the lane, I spot two people walking. I shade my eyes against the sun and see that it’s Leora and Sal. A ring of turkey vultures rises above the field behind them, like Gothic versions of Icarus, trying to reach the sun. With timing so perfect it must be calculated, Jabil comes out of the
dawdi haus
right when they’re passing by and nods stiffly as their paths overlap. Leora nods too. Even from here, I can see the tension swaying between them like a massive heat wave. I’m not going to waste my energy trying to figure them out. It’s none of my business what they do.

“Hey, Jabil,” I say as he mournfully watches Leora enter Field to Table with Sal.

“Hey, yourself.” Jabil gives me a look that reminds me of his uncle.

“Well—” Charlie claps his hands and smiles—“everybody’s here. Good. I’ll drive, Moses can ride shotgun with me. Jabil?” He nods at Jabil, who appears annoyed by Charlie’s enthusiasm. “I want
you
to guard the back.”

The skin pulls tight across Jabil’s cheekbones. “I can’t ‘guard’ anything. You know that. And besides, I’m not
going along because I want to; I’m going along to ensure that you all honor the community while you’re out there.”

Charlie snorts. “Somebody got his suspenders in a knot.” But I cut him a glance and he looks ashamed, or as ashamed as someone socially impaired like Charlie can. Switching tactics, he says, “I guess—uh, you can ride shotgun with me, and Moses can guard the back. I mean,
really
guard it. We gotta be smart here, guys. No doubt the town’s got plenty of weapons in the wrong hands, and I bet even decent people are getting desperate enough to do things they normally wouldn’t.” But his flashing pirate’s grin contradicts his warning.

Charlie gets into the Suburban and cranks the engine. Jabil takes off his hat and ducks down low before maneuvering his lanky body into the passenger side. I open the back hatch and climb in, place my revolver crosswise on my lap, and see that an AR-15 is already propped in the corner within reaching distance. The interior smells of sweat and gore. The sagging ceiling’s tacked with a constellation of pushpins. But the Suburban runs like a top, and not only does she run, the tank’s almost full of gas, which is a priceless break.

Charlie shifts into reverse and then drive, directing the Suburban’s dinosaurian body out past Field to Table and toward the gates that are being guarded by Henri and Sean.

Nobody in the community is coming out to wave
good-bye or wish us luck—not even Leora, which surprises me somewhat, considering how eager she was for us to obtain ammunition. Part of this might be because it’s still so early and—besides the few women who have been up since before dawn, packing supplies at Field to Table—nearly everyone’s in their kitchens cleaning up breakfast or out in their barns doing chores. But I have to wonder if the other reason they’re not saying good-bye is because we’re not the good guys going off to war and we’re not the bad. Our survival instincts have mixed black and white until our consciences are color-blind to anything but the indefinite shade of gray.

I am about to turn around to peer through the windshield when Sal comes out of Field to Table and stands in the center of the lane where the weeds need cut, watching us with her legs firmly planted and her left hand making the sign of the cross. It’s a gesture I saw my devout mom do all her life, but it seems out of place on Sal, and not only because she’s using the wrong hand. She doesn’t seem the type to rely on anything other than herself, and she sure doesn’t seem the type to pray for others. Yet I shouldn’t judge. Over the years, I’ve seen self-proclaimed agnostics hit their knees and pray with the fluency of longtime disciples when faced with a life-and-death situation. Maybe Sal’s trying to comfort herself the best way she knows. Or maybe she somehow knows about my Catholic background and is trying to comfort me.

Before my first deployment—back before I witnessed such carnage and began to believe we’re all just an accident of physics—I too tried to imagine something greater than all of us, and I prayed with a zeal my mom would’ve been proud of . . . if she’d known. I went so far as to get a cross tattooed on my chest, hoping that when God saw my broken body sprawled on the parched mosaic of the desert floor—struggling to take its next breath—he would notice that symbol of consecration, more than the blood on my hands, and draw me close to himself.

But then, I wasn’t the one who died. Regardless of the number of my deployments, and no matter how many close calls I had, I was
never
the one who died. Aaron was the same. It got to where our comrades started treating us like talismans and felt invincible if we were around.
“Moses and Aaron gonna lead us out of captivity and into the Promised Land,”
they joked, slapping our Lightweight Helmets before climbing out of the Humvee, like we basketball players used to slap the locker room beam before running out for the big game.

The point is, I couldn’t protect them.
We
couldn’t protect them. Instead, too many times they were felled while we remained standing and walked away unscathed—men who had wives and children at home and, some, newborn infants they’d only seen through Skype—which seemed unfair, since we had nobody back home to mourn us but our parents and grandpa.

Then that changed. A black cat crossed the road. A mirror broke. Salt spilled. A rosary bead slipped through my mom’s fingers. Something. And the protective membrane rent. My brother was felled, and I remained, disoriented and bloody, but—miraculously,
cruelly
—alive.

I can feel my lungs compressing, and when I look down, my fingers are wrapped around the gun, knuckles ridged and white. I’ve carried a gun since I’ve been home, something tangible in place of my intangible faith, but I haven’t used one in a year. The thought makes me sick.

I consciously relax my hold and look away from the lane and out through the windshield. Henri, up on the scaffolding, jerks back on the bolts and pulls the counterweight to open the gates. Sean leans down and smacks the roof, the unexpected jolt making memories rise like bile in my throat. I turn around to face the smudged glass of the hatch, trying to breathe through my nose without making it obvious and to focus on anything but my panic.

Refugees are camping in the field across the road, probably waiting until the soup line starts up again, so they are going to be disappointed when it doesn’t. Still, there are not as many as there were two days ago, and I wonder if the blood marking the gravel outside the community has made everyone pass over us like the death angel passed over the Israelites’ hyssop-swiped doorposts in Egypt. Who knows what kind of rumors have been circulating about what
happened that day the boys were shot from our gate. I hate to admit it, but if the refugees fear us, it may be a good thing since we will soon be unable to feed ourselves—not to mention the strangers who expect to take from us and then continue on their journey.

The groups of people cluttering the main road now part around the Suburban like two halves of the Red Sea. It’s clear from how little attention they pay to our vehicle that it’s not the first working one they’ve seen since the newer ones shut down. Their soiled clothes blur into the surrounding landscape as Charlie presses the gas and we pick up speed. It’s impossible to count the magnitude of their numbers, but I know they can’t all be Liberty citizens trying to escape.

They must be making their way from the various smaller towns that dot the countryside, hoping to find some help and safety in the larger county seat. But having reached their destination, it is obvious that they can see the best thing is to keep moving. This may also be true for the Mt. Hebron community, despite its pretense of self-sufficiency and the fortified wall, which could be breached far more easily than any of us are willing to admit.

Along the road are suitcases of all styles, shapes, and hues. Most have been ransacked and are yawning open—the unwanted contents spilled across the grass. I see a guitar case covered in concert decals and a jogging stroller, the
wheels intact, which causes me to pause and wonder what happened to the child. I see Jabil looking at the stroller as well—his profile ashen. He presses his thumbs against his temples as if to ward off a headache. Having been sheltered inside the community, he must find it horrific to imagine what choices other people have faced.

I call up to him, “It’s harsh, isn’t it?”

Jabil nods. He puts his hat back on and folds his arms, as if embarrassed I saw how that empty stroller affected him. But he should know I am being affected too. Adrenaline surges through my veins at a faster rate the closer to our destination we draw, as I anticipate someone attempting to hijack our vehicle around every turn. But Liberty, which was teeming with life three days post-EMP, is a ghost of its former self. The buildings have been gutted of every usable resource. The road is strewn with a confetti of refuse. The Dairy Shack has been burned to the ground, smoke wafting into the air from the center of the blackened pile of ash.

Jabil spreads the map across the dashboard and traces his fingers down the blue and red veins of the city. “Where do you want to go first?” he asks.

Charlie says, “Armory,” and meets my eyes before rolling his in the rearview mirror, as if saying that was a stupid question.

Jabil looks over at Charlie looking at me, and though I know he must feel slighted, he makes no comment. He
simply measures the space and says, “It should be a few blocks from here.”

Charlie turns the wheel, navigating down the streets. The leaden sky presses down on us like a weight, the gray swatch tapering out to the gray asphalt, as if we’ve been decimated by nuclear fallout rather than an EMP. Up ahead, we see someone—more of a ghost clad in rags than a man—dart around a large building resembling a civic center and then enter through an emergency exit. Charlie maneuvers his rifle and awkwardly angles it out the window. Jabil takes a small Bible from the pocket of his pants. The image of them sitting side by side would be comical if our situation weren’t so grim.