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Chapter 13: Death

Julia arrived just before noon. Even though the temperature outside was (probably) at least ninety degrees, the slender Greyhound wore a billowy, sleeveless vest on top of her white t-shirt. From her backpack, she brought out a large bottle of whiskey.

“Found this while going through some of the fancy apartments near here,” she explained. “I thought today would be a good day to drink it - we can take it with us when we go to Ramses’ place.”

“You thought correctly,” Gunnar said, pleased.

“And what are you going to bring?” Julia asked Gunnar, as a joke.

“Myself,” the beefy Pit Bull replied, with a smile. “And my charming personality. So that’s two things.”

“And Ario made bread,” I informed Julia. “Don’t worry, it looks like it turned out better than the last loaf.”

“I’m sure it did,” Ario said. He looked at the bottle in Julia’s hand. “Alcohol and bread, which is perfect. It’s almost like we’re about to do some kind of religious ritual. What else do we need?”

“Where’s Rex?” Julia asked.

“Bathroom,” Gunnar explained. “Getting all pretty for you.”

“Shut up.” Startled, Julia both blushed and laughed at the same time. She swatted Gunnar with her free hand, a bit harder than was necessary.

Gunnar, as was his way, did not mind at all.

The walk to Ramses’ building was a short one. Considering the weather, that was a blessing.

“Feels like we’re walking on the sun,” Ario complained.

“Hey, it’s tough being a Wolf in the city,” Gunnar teased him.

“Yeah - because we have to put up with the rest of you,” Ario replied, with an amused grin.

Bringing up the rear, Rex and Julia playfully nudged each other with their shoulders. A few steps behind the rest of us, they were engaged in a private conversation, with quiet voices.

“How are you doing?” Gunnar asked, walking by my side.

“Good,” I replied, casually. “Still hurts, a little, to walk. But it’s a lot better than it was a few days ago.”

Absently, I looked down at my stomach - even though, of course, the bandage was hidden away under my t-shirt. As I walked, as I breathed in and out, the skin of my injured stomach stretched and flexed. The pain, however, was nowhere near what it had once been. The wound looked like it was closing up, thanks to the stitches.

Mentally, I reminded myself that I would have to take those stitches out, at some point. I was pretty sure my training had included how long to leave them in for, but, I’d forgotten that detail. Well, I would just keep an eye on the wound, and make my best guess.

Once inside Ramses’ place, we all paused and breathed a sigh of relief. The entry foyer was shady and cool - the air felt much, much cooler. Delighted, we smiled like children who’d been given ice cream.

“Come in, come in,” the older Wolf greeted us.

Ramses had gathered chairs into a rough circle, facing the large window which overlooked the street. He pulled back the blackout curtain which - during most of the day - prevented anyone from seeing inside.

“I made some iced coffee,” he said. “If anyone wants a glass -” He glanced at the bottle Julia held in her hand. “With a shot of whiskey stirred in?”

We all wanted that. Ario went into the kitchen, for a bread knife and some plates. Ramses mixed the drinks - a generous amount of alcohol, combined with iced coffee and a bit of sugar.

“I’m so glad I can still find sugar,” he said, handing out drinks. “Milk, of course, is gone. Whatever didn’t get consumed, well, it’s all expired by now.”

“Yeah, we’re starting to run out of things,” Ario agreed. He gestured with a piece of bread in his hand. “I’m getting better at making this, and flour is everywhere, I can find it pretty easily. Butter, however, is getting rare. All the milk’s gone. And I guess butter is going to be next.”

“And things are going to get worse,” I noted.

“Yes,” Ramses agreed. “It’s going to get worse. Because - well - that’s obvious, right? Nothing’s been brought into the city since January. Since that day. No deliveries, no shipments, of things. Since January, those of us who stayed here are just eating and drinking whatever was already here.”

“We’ll probably run out of beer, some day,” Gunnar said, looking sad for a moment.

“Then someone will have to start making beer,” Ramses said. “And someone will have to start making milk, and butter. Which means feral cows. Are there feral cows anywhere, around here? And - well - we’ll all have to follow Ario’s example - we’ll all have to make our own bread, now. We have to - we’ll have to start growing vegetables, and planting wheat, and those of us who don’t know how to cook will have to learn. That’s how things are now, right?”

“But -” Julia started to say. She paused, organizing her thoughts. “But - what if this isn’t permanent? What if everything comes back? We just don’t know, do we? Surely, it’s possible that we’ll hear from the government again, and maybe - who knows - maybe the power will come back on? And then maybe the TV stations will come back, and maybe folks will return to the city, and they’ll reopen their shops. And then we will all just . . . go on like we did before.”

“It’s possible, of course,” Ramses said, nodding. “But if it happens, when will it happen? Until it does, I think we need to plan ahead. Not just us, but everyone - all the folks who stayed in the city. We need to start growing food, and we need to get together and figure things out. Things like, for example, what if the power doesn’t come back on? I wonder - is there a way, is there someone here in the city, who can fix that? Because who knows how long we can keep our generators running.”

“There’s a lot to think about,” I said, reaching for another slice of bread. “What to build, or rebuild - and how to do it.”

“Sounds like a lot of work.” Gunnar voiced his opinion.

“It will be,” Ramses said, nodding. “It won’t be easy, and it won’t be painless, but it should be done. If folks are willing. After all, it’s been six months - and since then, everyone’s just been living day to day, with no thought about the future. Myself included.”

“Maybe it’s like what Julia said,” Rex jumped in. “This could be temporary - we just don’t know. Sometimes I feel like everyone - all of us - we’re just . . . waiting to find out what’s going to happen. Like you said -” he glanced at Ramses. “Living day to day. On the other hand, what if this is - you know - permanent?” He looked around, waiting for our reactions.

“In other words, what if things never go back to the way they were before?” Ario asked.

“Everything has changed,” Ramses said, waving a hand towards the window. “That’s stating the obvious. And, yes, we don’t know if those changes are temporary or permanent. I just feel like - I just think, we shouldn’t take any chances. We should start doing things like growing food - just in case. Just in case things get worse, or stay the same.”

“I read an article once,” I said, “About the rooftop gardens that some folks have - or had - in the city. We could try looking for one of those.”

“That would be a good start,” Ramses said. He paused, as if considering whether or not to say what was on his mind. “What if the changes are permanent? What then? We’ll have to rebuild everything, right? Or . . . would that give us a chance to build something new? With the quote-unquote old world demolished, with all the old ways gone . . . We can build a new world.”

“A new way of living?” Ario asked, his curiosity awakened. He seemed to be pondering the idea the way he’d ponder a new theory, or a new thesis.

“Excuse me a second,” Julia said, suddenly. “I’m just going to get some air.”

She rose, and we watched as she went into the kitchen. Soundlessly, she slipped through the back door, and went out to the small, concrete space which sat behind the building.

“Me too,” Rex said, standing up. Soon, he’d followed Julia outside.

Ramses raised his eyebrows as he looked at me - a way of asking, Everything alright?

“It’s just hard for them to get some time alone,” I explained. “All of us, we’re sort of always just hanging out together.”

“Ah,” Ramses said, with a slight smile. “I did wonder about those two. It’s none of my business, of course - sorry for being so curious - but I did wonder.”

“We all wondered about them.” Ario’s smile showed his amusement. “Looks like they’re finally getting past whatever was holding them back.”

“Yeah. Hey, you know what we should do?” Gunnar reached over and gave Ario a friendly nudge. “We should go out some night - somewhere, anywhere. Some place where we can meet females. When was the last time you did that? The three of us will go - you, me, Jack -” He waved a hand in my general direction. “You and me will chat up the females, Jack will chat up the males. It’ll be fun, yeah?”

“Sure.” Ario didn’t sound enthused.

There was a slight pause in the conversation, while more coffee and more bread were passed around.

“Heads up.” Gunnar had turned to face the large window. “Looks like Selene is coming over. She looks upset.”

Quicker than I’d ever seen him move, Ramses rose from his chair. He dashed to the door, and he was there before Selene could knock. She did, indeed, look very upset.

“Can you come over to the pub? Now?” she asked Ramses. She glanced over at Gunnar, Ario, and myself. She did not greet us.

Normally, she would say hello in a warm way that made you feel she was truly glad to see you.

“What’s going on?” Ramses asked, eyebrows once again raised upwards to show his curiosity.

“Just come,” Selene said, simply. “My sister’s back.”

Without another word, she turned and exited. She did not seem steady on her feet, and I wondered if she’d had a shock. Ramses looked at us, and I waved at him - go with her, the wave said, we’ll catch up.

Silently, wondering what was going on, we collected Rex and Julia. And then we made our way out into the hot, summer air. We crossed the street all bunched up, and it took us a moment to form a line, so we could enter the pub.

Selene’s sister looked like a younger version of Selene. A lithe Fox, wearing faded jeans and a sleeveless blouse, she sat curled up in the corner. Her name was Natasha, and she asked us to call her Nat. She did not look upset, I noted, but she did look very tired.

Selene introduced us, and then she went to collect an assortment of cold beers. Gunnar, as was his way, when beer was involved, went to help.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” Ramses said, to Nat.

He had known Selene before everything changed - before the bombs had gone off. However, he’d never met Natasha. She’d been in college, down in Florida.

“Likewise,” Nat said, with a friendly smile. “Too bad it couldn’t have been under better circumstances.”

“So what’s going on? Why did Selene look so troubled?”

“I have to tell you something,” Nat said, taking her time with the words. “You’ll need a beer, first.” She nodded towards Selene and Gunnar, who began passing cold bottles around our little circle.

“Let’s all sit down, shall we?” Selene spoke up. She began pulling chairs towards us, until Ario and I jumped in to do it for her. “I’m not ready to hear this again - what Nat has to say - but I have to hear it again. And you . . . hold on.” She rose, once again a bit unsteady on her feet, and she went to the door. After she flipped the sign over, to read Closed instead of Open, she returned to her chair. “All of you need to hear this.”

Nat, meanwhile, was looking at Ramses.

“The first thing Selene said to me - after I told her where I’d been - she said she had to go and bring you over here.” Natasha studied Ramses, as if trying to appraise him. “I’m glad you stuck around. Especially because I sure took my sweet time getting here.”

“I’m glad, as well,” Ramses replied. He looked at Selene, then he turned his attention to Nat. “Where have you been?”

She took a deep breath, drank some beer.

“It took me so long to get here because I ended up in a group. After the bombs went off, in January. We all helped each other. And, well, everyone had a different place to get to. None of us wanted to stay in Florida. Well, we did stay until spring started. Florida’s a good place to be, in winter, you know. After that, we went to Atlanta, because two of our group wanted to go there. Um, long story short, we got them settled, then the rest of us left.”

Nat looked past us, into the distance, as she prepared herself to tell what she’d just told her sister.

“We went west, then north, then east. Mississippi, then Little Rock, then up to Kentucky. Every city or town we went to, someone in our group left - because that was their destination. When there were just four of us left, we went to this little town in Virginia - shit - I forget the name. Cam’s parents were there. After that, we were three - myself, plus a couple who’d been married forever. Everywhere we went, by the way, was just like here.” She looked around, at all of us, one by one. “Everywhere is just like here - just like this city. No power, no cops, and lots of rubble and chaos. Some places have folks still there, usually all in a group, surviving together. Some don’t.”

She paused, to let us digest that. We mentally pictured the places she’d been to, all of them fallen into chaos.

“Anyway . . .” Nat continued. She drank more beer. “My friends, that couple who’d been married forever, they wanted to go to Lancaster, which is in Pennsylvania. They both had family there. So, we went. Some stuff happened - nothing too major, but some of the roads were messed up, and we did have to run from some folks who were trying to steal from us. I don’t want to talk about any of that, because it’s not important. And, because I don’t want to worry, or frighten, Selene.” She looked at her sister with affection, and Selene returned the look. “We got to Pennsylvania eventually.”

Sitting next to me, Ramses suddenly tensed up. There was a look on his face . . . Had he suddenly figured out where this story was going? Then, a second later, I thought I, too, knew where it was going.

“In Lancaster,” Nat said, “I made a new friend - twenty years older than me, gay, great sense of humor. A Shepherd named Daniel. Well, Daniel and I both wanted to come here, so we teamed up. And I wanted to go through Philadelphia on the way. Daniel tried to talk me out of it.”

She paused, and her gaze traveled from face to face.

“Yeah?” Gunnar asked. “Why, what was going on in Philly?”

“Or, what happened in Philly?” Ario asked, softly.

“Daniel told me it was bad,” Nat replied. “I don’t know what got reported on the news, before all the TV stations stopped broadcasting, before the power went out everywhere - but - what I heard, secondhand, was that all the big cities got hit hard. I also heard that Philadelphia got hit the hardest. Makes sense, right? It’s the nation’s capital, it’s where all the important folks are.” She tried to keep her voice casual, but there were some strong emotions swimming down deep under the surface. I wondered if she was remembering things she’d seen.

“Daniel tried to warn me,” she said, quietly. “But I had to go there. Wouldn’t you? Because it’s Philly. Right? It was . . . It was bad. The Coalition Building is just - um - gone, it’s just rubble, now. Same with the White House. Those places got hit, believe me when I tell you that.”

“Seven gods,” Ario whispered, leaning back in his chair.

“I took pictures,” Nat said. “Not sure I ever want to look at them, but I took a lot of photos. I can’t even describe how it felt, standing there in front of the rubble. I was numb, first - shock, maybe. Then I just felt overwhelmingly sad. Those two iconic buildings . . . And then I wondered who’d been inside, when the bombs went off.”

“The president?” Rex asked. He looked like he was afraid of the answer. “Her advisors? And the Senate, and all those folks?”

Wordlessly, Nat shook her head.

“What are you saying?” Rex looked horrified.

“There are a few folks still living in Philly,” Nat said. “And they were there when the bombs went off. They told me that almost everyone - the President, her advisors, the Senate - were in the Coalition building when it got bombed . . .”

“Seven gods,” Ario said, again, staring at his near-empty bottle.

“Almost everyone?” Ramses asked. “Does that mean - someone survived?”

“No,” Nat replied. She looked around, again. “It gets worse. I hope you’re ready to hear this. The vice president was at the White House. He died, too, when that place got hit. The Senior of the Senate, who’s third in line, died with the others in the Coalition building. There’s an advisor, a Cabinet member, I forget which one, who’s fourth in line - she was at that office building with the weird name - shit - what’s it called? Well, anyway, that place got bombed, too.”

“Hold on,” Rex protested. “Are you saying that they’re all dead? The entire government? That’s . . . that’s just crazy.”

“That’s what I was told.”

For a long moment, no one quite knew what to say.

I didn’t want to believe it. It was too much. And something else was bothering me.

“The capital has - well, had - the toughest security on the planet,” I pointed out. “Especially at the White House and the Coalition Building. The terrorists blew up a lot of buildings here, in the city, yeah, but they chose buildings that had very little security. Some of those places didn’t even have cameras on the outside. They were all easy targets. The Coalition Building, however, that would have been - I don’t want to say impossible, but - And you said it was completely destroyed?”

Nat simply shrugged, then she looked up, gratefully realizing that Selene was handing her another beer.

“The folks I talked to,” Nat said, “Some of them worked for the government. And they told me the same thing you just said - and they could not, absolutely could not, believe that someone got past all that security. Well, or it was several someones, who knows. Those survivors in Philly - some of them think what happened was an inside job.”

“What?” Gunnar blurted out. “But it was the Insurgents who - I mean - how could the Insurgents have someone on the inside of the government?”

Nat simply shrugged again. Then she looked at me, and said,

“You look like you don’t believe me.”

“It’s not that,” I assured her. “Because I do believe you. I guess I’m just trying to understand the what and the how.” I shrugged, as Nat had just done. “It’s sort of a habit. And now I’m thinking about . . . the government has - or had? - a plan for things like this. There was actually a plan for what to do, in case of any emergency - a plan for how to keep the government going.”

“Yeah, I heard about that, in Philly,” Nat replied. “But it seems like there wasn’t anybody to put the plan in motion.” She looked at Rex. “Most folks I talked to think that everyone in the government died. But, there were a few who said that was impossible, that there had to be some survivors. Well, where did those survivors go? They sure didn’t stick around, they sure didn’t take charge of anything. Most likely, they did what other folks did - they gathered up their families and they took off.”

“So, in other words, there just . . . there just isn’t any government.” Rex somehow looked both amazed and horrified.

“The army had a plan, too,” I said. “For situations like this. Did you see any soldiers, anywhere?”

“I traveled all over the south, then to Philly, then here - and I didn’t see a single soldier,” Nat replied, quietly.

“Shit,” I swore. “I wondered about that. Well, the plan was supposed to involve mobilizing soldiers in as many cities and towns as possible, depending on how many soldiers were available. I’ve been here, in the city, the whole time, and - just like you - I haven’t seen a single soldier.”

Nat was looking at me with curiosity.

“I was in the army,” I said, with a casual shrug. “And I can tell you something else. According to the plan, I was supposed to receive orders. Even after the power went down, and the phones went out, someone in charge was supposed to send out orders, by any means possible. But, guess what - I didn’t get anything. No messages, no nothing.”

Again, no one knew what to say. Silence filled the air, it rose up and it spread out towards the corners of the room.

Eventually, Gunnar asked,

“So what does this mean?”

“It means we’re on our own,” Nat replied.