The Daily Novel

THIRTY-ONE

The world had become a living nightmare. Lawlessness ran amok. Beautiful buildings were vandalized; houses and dwellings were burned or filled with nasty squatters. My own apartment building lay in charred ruins and my possessions destroyed. I had lost friends and coworkers to bullets, disease, suicide, and mishap. Teenage daughters of good people were raped and killed. People could be pulled from cars and beaten at any time, or randomly shot. Pestilence and filth were omnipresent. The scummy, chronically criminal elements of society actually seemed to enjoy the new world. After all, the playing field was level: The millionaires, corporate officers and wealthy entrepreneurs were now basically the same as the poverty-stricken. They, too, were powerless nobodies with wealth and carefree comfortable retirements absent from their futures. A rich man died just as easily as a poor man and both were accorded the same indignities in death. These were the realities of humanity.

I cut the crew loose after I identified Sarah and just walked until I found a place to sit. I sat on an old bus stop bench in the late afternoon, surrounded by urban debris and awash in sorrow. I stared at the asphalt out in front of me. After some time, I realized that my fingers were absentmindedly spinning the wedding band on the marriage finger of my left hand. Crows squawked their annoying squawk. Every now and then a piece of garbage would blow by like tumbleweed through an old western town. Last spring seemed like twenty years ago. I’d lost more friends in one spring and summer than most people lose in a lifetime. I’d lost most of my possessions.

And, of course, I lost my Sarah.

Everything was a surreal adventure in the beginning right after The Attack, terrifying and exciting all at the same time. But post-nuclear holocaust society had slowly degraded into a vast emptiness of difficult existence. My soul wandered in the hopeless purgatory of not wanting to live and not wanting to die. Infinite sadness was a millstone around my neck. It must have showed.

A cordial elderly gentleman was shuffling by when he stopped and looked at me. He thought for a reflective moment before saying something: “Anyone can see beauty in the ruins of a church. But no one can see beauty in the ruins of a man.”

He smiled a kindly smile, nodded gently and then continued on his way. I don’t know if he thought he needed to say that or if I needed to hear that, but I was somehow glad that he did.

An unseasonably cool wind stirred, whispering a vague threat of colder months to come. Soon it would turn into autumn, and then autumn would turn into winter. Diesel generators would be useful…until the fuel was depleted. As any truck driver could tell you, diesels idled at such a low rate of fuel consumption that you could leave a truck idling all night long if you had to leave it outside on a cold winter’s night. A battery system with solar panels for recharging would be a more practical solution for long-term recovery. Wood- or coal-burning stoves and fuel storage would be a part of every county emergency system. Coal would store well if it were placed between a straw blanket and covered with dirt. I’d been studying for cold weather survival on the internet, see.

Whatever.

Such are the things that weighed on the mind as September neared. A cruel sibling of time, the seasons were without a flyspeck of concern if you were prepared or not. A harsh winter would separate the weak from the strong, the prepared from the unprepared.

What started out as a nightmare turned into an adventure, and adventure turned into a mindless, soul-sucking hell. I was in a situation way over my head. Fate, God, Allah, terrorists—whatever the entity was, it had beaten me. I tired of this life. Living only to live? What’s the point?

Nothing lasts forever. I guess just about everyone would agree with that.

My name is Dallas Burnette. I’m thirty-five years old and a native of Minneapolis. I used to sell sandpaper but now I nail boards over windows. I’m a scoundrel, a near-murderer…and a widower. I don’t know why I was put here on this Earth, why I’m still alive as people better than I die all around me. I don’t even know why I’m sitting on this bench. Maybe I’m paying for a life not well-lived and this existence that I’m experiencing is merely Erebus, the dark place through which the dead must pass before entering hell.

FINAL CHAPTER:
A SOCIETY OF GOOD MEN

In a culturescape where obtaining food and dodging random death were daily challenges, the things people used to fight for and about – universal health care, social security, civil rights, environmentalism, campaign finance reform, corporate tax-breaks—all of these things had become silly in comparison. Concerns about such things as credit card debt and rotten love lives evaporated into nonexistence.

A man used to be measured by his portfolio, bank account, job, and status. Now a man knew he was a winner at the game of life if he simply woke up in the morning. Breathing and relative health were the signs of a blessed person. Compared to the carnage and inhumanity that I saw every day, I had it very good. I had food, shelter, and a job. Hell, I even sat in a bar and drank pretty good beer on a regular basis. Yet, I thought of taking my own life almost constantly. Derek had the courage to do it—why couldn’t I?

Scheerer called me into his office one day in early September. Through everything that had happened to me in the previous months, Dan Scheerer had been a solid rock of stability. It was of little wonder to me that he was alive and thriving as a human being, all things considered.

He told me that he was sorry, very sorry about Sarah. He knew that her loss was an ongoing source of great sadness for me. Then we had a little friendly small talk before getting down to business.

“Our mission has been reduced to doing anything and everything at the whim of government minions higher on the food chain than us,” he said. One thing was clear; trying to be the stewards of a dying city was a losing battle. “We’re just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, I think you know that.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I replied.

“The meek may indeed inherit the Earth, but I can tell you that shitbags have inherited the city of Minneapolis,” he said.

I’m not sure, but I think that was the first time I heard Dan Scheerer use a cuss word.

“If you want to stay,” he continued, “that’s up to you. You’ll still have a job with the county. God knows, metropolitan areas need guys like us. But if you decide to leave, I won’t stop you, and I won’t report you as deserting.”

“Thanks, Dan, but why are you telling me this?” I said. “Where the hell am I going to go?”

“There’s a man in town…I guess you’d call him a recruiter,” Dan said.

“A recruiter?” I said, surprised. “I’m not joining the Army!”

“Get serious. What I’m telling you is in the strictest of confidence.”

“Okay,” I said, somewhat intrigued.

“There are more nukes in America.”

The mere utterance of the phrase made my heart skip a beat. After staring at Dan for a few seconds, I managed to speak. “How do you know?”

“You’re going to have to trust me on that one, I have my sources.” Scheerer’s honesty was beyond reproach, and I believed him. He continued: “There’s a man looking for people to help start a new community, a new society, far from any urban area. I recommended you. If you’re interested, go to the community center tonight at ten o’clock. It’ll be after sundown, so nobody but a few government folks will be there.”

“You’re not telling everyone? Just me?”

“The people I’m recommending find out one-on-one from me. You understand this is strictly confidential?”

“Of course, I do. But, why in the hell would you pick me?”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re a better man than you think you are.”
“
Thanks,” I said.

“Get outta here for now, Dallas,” he said with a fatherly hand on my shoulder. I nodded, left his office, and went out on duty for the day. Yet I was curious. I had no idea what this recruiter was all about or what he could want from the straggling remnant population of a dead city.

I finished out the workday and went down to the bar. A peaceful beer at the Kaiserhof was one of the few things in my life I could count on. I talked with no one as I nursed two pilsners over several hours and then headed out.

I showed up at the community center on time, along with some other people, and we were led as a group to a room in the basement. There were about fifteen men in the room, mostly folks from other departments of the government. There was a tall, rugged man standing in the front of the room with his hands on his hips, waiting for us to get situated. He was a light-skinned African-American with an air of dignity and intelligence about him, even as he stood there motionless. He wore a clean denim work shirt tucked into pressed khaki pants with cargo pockets and clean, but well-worn hiking boots. A gold wedding band shined on his left hand and a large ring—Annapolis?—gleamed on his right. Next to him was a cart with a TV and DVD player hooked up and ready to go. I wondered what he would have done if the power had been out on this particular evening, as it appeared he was ready to give us a media presentation. People settled in and he spoke.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for venturing out to meet with me tonight. My name is Boscoe Williams. I’m a former U.S. naval aviator, and I used to work for the federal government as a nuclear physicist, before the The Attack. I was the nuclear search team leader in San Francisco on April first. We disabled that bomb. Nowadays, I guess I’m what you’d call a consultant to the feds.

“What am I doing here? I drive around the upper Midwest looking for just a few men and women to hear a proposal. I have a DVD to show you, which I think will be self-explanatory. I’ll take all of your questions afterward, so please save your thoughts for now.”

With that, he pointed the DVD remote at the machine, hit the start button, and stepped to the back of the room. The first thing we saw was white letters on a black background:

This presentation is sanctioned by the government of the United States of America and exists under EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004, which allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, and designate areas to be abandoned, and establish and sanction new locations for populations.

After ten seconds or so, the screen started showing scenes of pre-April Attack society with a soothing male voice-over narrating;

“Do you remember what life used to be like? Do you remember the simple joys of life? Do you remember having a general feeling of safety and a hope that life held treasures and dreams yet to be realized? Life may never be the same since the nuclear attacks of April, but good people in this world can still find life, liberty and happiness in communities of shared philosophies.

“Who are we? We started as a group of concerned fathers and husbands. We have come to the firm resolution that our lives will go on. Our lives will go on in peace and tranquility. While sanctioned by the government, we are not a part of, nor are we directly linked to the government.

“If you decide to join us and are accepted, we expect you to bring your talents, your resources, and your optimistic belief that life and everything about life is precious. Every nail you hammer, every broken hinge you fix, every flower you nurture, every bit of knowledge or expertise that you pass along—from teaching someone how to dress a freshly shot buck to teaching someone a new chord on the guitar—every single thing you do is important for now, and for the next generation.

“A person brought into the society is expected to maintain the highest standards of good community behavior: A member of the society is not expected merely to exist, but to share and contribute and be a clear asset to the community on many levels. Everyone must perform assigned duties. There are no wealthy passengers along for a free ride to be served by others. There are many limitations to personal freedoms such as contraband materials. There will be no recreational drugs or alcohol. All firearms and weapons will be placed in a common armory and will not be released except under orders from a commanding authority. There will be no private stocks of foods because under survival conditions this can lead to social disorder.

“We believe that we are strong when we live and function as one: No individual has the personal resources that a group has. However, if it is a large group, then there are numbers of people available to continue to give support. Just like there are numbers of people available to maintain twenty-four-hour security, or to dispatch well-manned convoys to go after necessary supplies. One more prepared and equipped individual added to such a group is an asset. One more unprepared and unequipped individual is a liability. A successful society will be completely homogeneous regarding economics, values, and future expectations. Still, the society is not a democratic community any more than is a ship or an airliner.

“Neither is the society a democracy in the sense that there must be much more stringent rules regarding behavior. Malfeasance of any sort will not be tolerated: Order will be kept. And, lest there be any confusion, we are not survivalists or supremacists. Racially motivated violence or killings will be dealt with harshly and swiftly. Information is shared between like-minded communities, and the banished will find themselves wandering in a wilderness of the evil: the roving bands, the gypsies, the robbers, and the killers.

“The nuclear attacks of the first of April were a birthing process, and all birthings are painful. Natural progression demands catastrophe as catalyst. And as we shift into a new way of life—a new brand of human being—we become more complex, gain a higher level of consciousness, and gain new freedoms. These are simple laws of nature and natural progression. To quote Kahlil Gibran, ‘When you have reached the mountaintop, then shall you begin the climb.’ Welcome to the mountaintop, my friends.

“Tough? Yes, anything worth having is tough. But not nearly as tough as the conditions of survival will be for those who are not prepared.

“We are in a fight to preserve any semblance of a good and a free society. We don’t know what the future holds, but we will give our descendants the best chance they can get. We will do this by starting over and creating a society with templates of good and decent behavior, and by seeking the simple goals that founded our American country many years ago; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

“Please remember: Destiny is not a matter of chance, it’s a matter of choice. Thank you.”

The television screen faded to black, and the lights came back on. I was awestruck. For the first time in months, I had a feeling of optimism. Hands shot into the air as people tried to ask Mr. Williams questions about this new society, this society of good men. For me, there was no question: I was behind the wheel of a pickup full of supplies and leaving Minneapolis before sunset on the very next day.

- THE END -