Half Past Midnight

This was getting fun. “Yeah. One had a broken knee and a hole in his left shoulder. Another one had a pretty nasty bump and cut on the front of his head.”

“How ’bout the last one?” He took the bait.

“Oh, he gave up before we hurt him.” I smiled innocently.

“How many of you was there?”

“Me, my wife, my sixteen-year-old daughter, and my nine-year-old son.” I saw the disbelief in his eyes. “Look, Officer, it’s a long story, and I don’t feel like telling it twice. So if you could just tell me who I need to report to, I’ll be on my way.”

But he wasn’t about to be put off after my last comment. “You expect me to believe that you, your wife, daughter, and son killed two bandits, wounded two more, and another one just gave up so you wouldn’t hurt him? That sounds like bullshit to me, boy!”

“Call it whatever you want,” I replied calmly. “Just tell me who to see in town, and I’ll take myself and my bullshit story out of here.”

He paused, evidently trying to decide whether the importance of my story outweighed the importance of his teaching me a lesson in manners. “You best get a grip on that attitude of yours, boy, or I’ll have to adjust it for you.”

I was tired, scared, and didn’t know when to leave well enough alone. “I don’t think you could adjust your ass with both hands, you stupid-”

Amber grabbed my arm. “That’s enough, Leeland!” She turned to the cop. “I’m sorry, Officer. He was hurt in the fight with the hijackers.” She indicated the scabbed-over slice on my throat. It still looked worse than it felt, but for once I was glad of it.

“Shee-it,” he drawled. “Hunh. Maybe it wasn’t all bullshit, after all.” He decided to ignore me completely and addressed Amber. “Okay, first thing y’all need to do is go to City Hall. The police station’s in the same building. You can make your report to the deputy on duty. Next, go to the titles and notary department and register your vehicle. They’ll give you a sticker to put on your windshield. You’ll also have to fill out a questionnaire. It’ll have a lot of questions about where you’re stayin’ and how many of you there are. What kind of skills you have. Stuff like that.”

He pointed at me. “You make sure you list that survivalist shit. They might want to pick your brain a little. They’re still trying to figure out how many of us there are and what we’ve got to work with. So far, we’re pretty much cut off from anyone else. Phones are down, and radios don’t work any farther than a mile or two. Hell, if it wasn’t for all of these damned refugees tryin’ to get past us, I’d think we were the only ones left.”

He signaled his partner, who climbed into one of the trucks and pulled it back far enough for us to get past. “Now, y’all remember what I told you. Go straight to City Hall. Otherwise, you’ll be in a heap o’ shit for drivin’ without a sticker. Probably lose your van.” He waved us through.

“Sounds like things are pretty serious,” I said as we drove past.

Ken cocked an eyebrow at my understatement. “No shit! I just had a gun pointed at my head. I’d say that’s pretty damn serious!”

“Yeah,” I responded. “Real nice town you got here.” I grinned at the lonely finger he showed me.

We pulled onto Main Street and headed for City Hall. Along the way, we passed the only building in sight that showed signs of life, a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Its parking lot was filled to capacity with vehicles bearing markings from all over the state, as well as quite a few from Utah and Louisiana. I noticed as we passed that many of the vehicles were packed stem to stern with all kinds of supplies. I was willing to bet at that point that most of the refugees of which the officer had spoken were inside that church.

Other than that, however, the streets were pretty deserted. We saw fewer than a dozen people along the two-mile stretch, and only one moving vehicle, diesel, of course. There was definitely no sign of any crowd of refugees. I commented on this to the others.

“They probably started turning people back as soon as they realized what had happened,” Ken conjectured.

“Why would they do that?” Amber asked.

He shrugged. “To conserve resources? Someone must have realized early on that we may have to make do with what we have on hand and what we can manufacture or grow for a long time.”

“What about the Mormons back there?”

I answered, “Mormons have always believed in being prepared for any emergency situation. They were probably in town before the roadblocks had even been thought of.

“I don’t know whether or not it’s true, but I’ve heard a good Mormon keeps enough food on hand at all times to feed his entire family for a minimum of one year.”

Further conversation halted as we pulled into the City Hall parking lot. Four other cars were parked there, three of them covered with a thick layer of pine pollen, obviously undriven for several days. The fourth was a shiny, diesel Mercedes.

The plate glass doors were propped open, and as we entered, I was immediately reminded what kind of world we now lived in. In place of the fluorescent lights I subconsciously expected, lanterns lit the building.

We stopped at the door marked Police and spoke to the lady behind the desk. In a twangy Southern drawl, she told us that she was only the clerk, but that she would be happy to take my statement and file the report. After hearing my story, however, she asked if I would return on the following Wednesday to speak with the chief. She explained that Chief Davis had called in sick with some kind of stomach bug. We left without comment.

We then went to the Titles and Notary door.

“Can I help you?” the lady behind the desk queried.

“Yes ma’am, we were told we needed to register our van and get a sticker for the windshield.” Trying to fit in, I played up the country accent. I didn’t like being considered an outsider. If the cop at the roadblock was any indication, outsiders weren’t very welcome.

“Are you the owner?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She handed me a standard vehicle registration form and a pencil. “Fill out the first two sections and sign at the bottom.”

As I did so, she asked, “Have any of you filled out an Assimilation Form?”

“A what?”

She pushed three of the forms at us. I noticed that rather than the fine laser-quality print typical for this day and age, these were mimeographed, something I hadn’t seen since I’d been a kid in elementary school. “Please answer all questions completely and legibly.” She handed Ken and Amber each a pencil and smiled apologetically. “You can sit over there by the window. The electricity is still out.” As if she expected it to be restored at any moment.

Sitting at a desk that had been moved into the sunlight, I stared at the Assimilation Form. Name, age, address… All of the standard questions. Then it got interesting.

Previous profession, not just profession… previous profession.

Do you have any hobbies or skills that might be of any value in reconstruction? “Reconstruction,” a nice, neat, noncommittal term. All of the terminology seemed geared to building an optimistic picture of what had happened. I shook my head. How could they think to sugarcoat a nuclear war?

What provisions do you have stored?

What shelter do you have prepared?

Alarms started going off in my head as I read those two. About a half-dozen more questions of a similar nature followed. I looked up and found my alarm reflected in Ken’s furrowed brow. He looked as wary as I felt. His eyes questioned me as his pencil rested on the first of those troublesome questions. I turned to find the same question reflected in Amber’s eyes. They were both waiting for my lead.

What provisions do you have stored?

I thought for a moment, then firmly printed None. In my mind, it was clear. We had prepared so we could be assured of a fairly decent existence after all hell broke loose. We had not prepared a shelter and gathered food and provisions only to turn it all over to people that hadn’t. Call me coldhearted, or call