Soft Apocalypse

new one.”

“Deirdre!” I called. “Please come on down.” She was up high now, thirty or forty feet. The top was at least fifty. It made me dizzy just seeing her up that high.

“Deirdre,” Ange shouted, “it’s too high! Come down!” She put her hand over her mouth.

Deirdre reached the top, a narrow catwalk that skirted the bottom of the tank. She reached up, pulled herself onto the catwalk and turned to face out. She was still laughing, her chest and shoulders heaving with the violence of it. At least I thought she was laughing; from this distance laughing and crying would look about the same.

She lifted her leg and swung it over the railing.

“No!” everyone screamed in unison. Everyone but me. My lungs were frozen; my heart had stopped. Deirdre swung her other leg over so that she was sitting on the narrow rail.

She pushed off into empty space.

She looked like a little doll, a doll a naughty little girl had hurled over a railing. Her clothes flapped in the wind as she fell.

I was the first to reach her. She’d landed in a dry drainage canal, on a bank covered with stones. I pulled her head into my arms and held it. The others broke through the bamboo in ones and twos, and cried, or cursed, or asked Deirdre’s lifeless body why.

Sebastian came last, his arm bandaged with white socks.

“Pack up your stuff and get out,” I said.

“She just needed to give it time,” Sebastian said.

“Go,” I screamed.

Sebastian shrugged, turned away. “I’m so sorry,” he said as he disappeared into the bamboo.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Ange. I put my hand over hers and squeezed. Another hand clapped my other shoulder. Cortez.

“Everyone?” It was Colin, shouting from the house. “I think the baby’s coming.”

“Go on,” Cortez said. “I’ll take care of Deirdre.” He gave my shoulder a hard squeeze, then nudged me toward the house.

I pulled myself up, my legs wobbly, and headed toward our temporary home.

Jeannie was on the couch in the living room with Colin kneeling beside her, holding her hand. Colin looked up. “Can you help me?”

I wanted to argue that I didn’t know anything about delivering a baby, but I could see in his expression that he wasn’t asking because he thought I’d be any better at it than anyone else. He just wanted me by his side.

I knelt beside the couch.

Ange grabbed Colin’s wrist, pulled him up, and repositioned him at Jeannie’s head. “Your job is to be up here with your wife. We’ll worry about this end.”

Ange looked at me. “Ready?”

“What do we do?” I asked. I was so disoriented; I needed time to deal with what had just happened.

Ange shrugged. “We’ll figure it out.”

I turned. Sophia was kneeling behind us, her cheeks stained with tears. “Can you and Jean Paul build a fire and boil water?”

“Have you ever done this before?” Jean Paul asked.

“I’ll do it,” Cortez said, glaring at Jean Paul. I hadn’t seen Cortez return.

“Try to find some clean towels, too,” Ange suggested. “If there aren’t any, clean clothes.”

I think we were just lucky. The baby’s head was pointing straight down, and we didn’t have to do much except catch him when he came out.

Colin and Jeannie had a son. I both envied and pitied them. What would it be like, to be sick with worry every minute that something awful is going to happen to your child?

Chapter 8 PIG THIEF

Summer, 2033 (Two months later)

Ange rocked gently, one foot planted on the wood porch, the other tucked underneath her on the swing. We could see much of downtown Swainsboro from this vantage point—a dress shop, antique store, pawn shops huddled together in a row of red-brick buildings made this place feel deceptively small and old-fashioned.

There were people foraging in the music store across the street, their voices and the clatter of things drifting out of the broken store window. I considered going over and seeing if they had any news that we didn’t, but it wasn’t worth it. They wouldn’t know anything we didn’t.

People had been fleeing the country for the safety of the cities in droves for the past few years; now the cities weren’t safe either. But there was nothing out here to eat. There was nowhere to go.

Five or six people were relaxing on the wide white steps of the courthouse, their heads propped on their packs, a water bottle passing among them. They were young, and reminded me of our tribe back in the early days of the depression.

Music bleated in the distance. It was familiar. It grew louder, and

I recognized it as a classic rock tune by the Young Mozarts: “Carry My Heart Around with You.” The song was a little too saccharine for my taste, but under the circumstances it gave me a warm feeling as I watched the sun reflect off the shards of broken glass in the upper window of the Dragon Fire Tae Kwon Do studio. The music got louder. Ange stood, and I followed suit, peering down the street in the direction of the sound.

There was a placard bobbing up out of the bamboo, the person carrying it hidden. The banner read “Free Meal! Ask me how!”

“What the hell?” I said. Ange pulled open the screen door and called to the others to come out. They flooded onto the porch. I pointed to the sign.

“What the hell is that?” Colin asked. “It must be the fed army, looking for recruits.”

The kids in front of the courthouse were standing and staring at the sign. One of them shouted and waved; the sign changed directions, heading toward them. Two people approached on the steps—a man and a woman. The man laid the placard down. The kids formed a semi-circle around the couple.

Hungry as we were, we weren’t stupid. We watched the people for a few minutes.

“What do you think the catch is?” Sophia asked.

“I say we find out,” Cortez said.

“What, just waltz into an obvious trap?” Jean Paul said.

Cortez shrugged. “There are only two of them. I’m gonna check it out, you guys can stay here.”

“They’re probably armed,” Jean Paul said, “and have two dozen friends nearby.”

Cortez pulled a pistol out of his pants pocket. “I’m armed, too.”

“I’ll go with you,” I said, mostly because Jean Paul was against the idea. We climbed down the porch steps and slid between the waxy bamboo.

“That guy really has a stick up his ass,” Cortez said.

I chuckled. “He doesn’t seem to grasp that he’s not in an office building surrounded by private security any more.”

We stopped fifty feet shy of the steps, hoping to catch some of the conversation before deciding whether to proceed, but it’s difficult to move through bamboo without announcing your approach.

“Sounds like we’ve got more visitors,” The woman said. “Hello in there!” she called.

Cortez called a greeting in return; we pushed the last few yards and broke onto the white marble steps. The crowd was welcoming, especially the couple with the sign. They told us and the six kids (who I could now see were actually quite young, mostly in their mid-teens) how to get to the empty Bi-Lo where their tribe was camped, that their tribe would indeed provide us with a meal, no strings attached. Cortez and I probed them with questions. We didn’t want to seem ungracious, but we were still skeptical, despite how well-intentioned and harmless the couple seemed.

They explained that their tribe was looking to grow, to create a larger community and carve out a new town