“Atomic bombs?” Ben said aloud, his voice hollow and echoing in the room. “Germs?”
It really happened! he thought. I slept through a goddamned war!
“Maybe I’m lucky I did,” he muttered.
He started to pick up the mike to see if anyone would answer his call, then pulled his hand back.
“Yeah—somebody might answer it. But it might be somebody I don’t want to see.”
He knew only too well that many times human scum survived when others more deserving did not. Ben looked around the small station house (why do they always smell like piss?), could find nothing he felt he could use, then drove to the sheriff’s office.
It was a repeat of the police station. All dead. The office was a mess: gas masks scattered about; books on deadly gases and parish evacuation plans tossed on the floor. The bodies were stiff and blackened. And smelly.
Ben opened the windows and then prowled the office until he found what he was searching for: the gun room. He selected two .45-caliber pistols, checked them carefully, then found leather for them and extra clips. He calmly filled two extra clips for each pistol. He smashed the glass of a locked gun cabinet and picked up an old Thompson submachine gun. It was in almost mint condition; he had heard the sheriff was, or had been, a gun collector. He checked the SMG, found it in bad need of oiling, then prowled around until he found a can of oil. The bolt worked effortlessly when he had finished and the wood gleamed. He found a drum for the weapon and three clips, boxes of .45 ammunition, and a canvas clip pouch.
There was nothing he could do for the dead men, so Ben carried the gear outside to the fresh air, and sat on the steps. He filled the drum, then filled the clips, inserting a clip into the belly of the old 1921 Chicago piano, as the Thompson used to be called. This one was a modern-day version of the old weapon, but still more than thirty years old. It was a heavy weapon, and its effectiveness was limited. But up to one hundred yards, its knockdown power was awesome.
Ben walked to his truck and stuck the .38 back in the glove compartment. He belted one .45 around his waist. Again, he turned on the radio, slowly working the dial back and forth. Nothing. He drove to a sporting goods store.
A man and woman lay among the wreckage, dead. The store had been looted, but it had been done in haste, without much thought for real survival.
Ben spent an hour in the store, picking through the rubble, selecting what he felt he would need: all the forty-five ammunition he could find, which wasn’t much, a portable stove, lantern, a sleeping bag, an ax, a good knife, a tent, a tarp, rope, two dozen other items. Then he drove to a local supermarket and set about picking up more items. The supermarket, like the sporting goods store, had been looted, but there, too, without much thought.
If everybody is dead, Ben thought, as he walked down the aisles, feeling just a bit foolish pushing a shopping cart, where are all the bodies? And if everybody is dead, who did the looting?
From the supermarket, he drove to a drug store. It had also been looted, but nothing of any real value taken. Drugs to make you high; drugs to make you low. False happy-time. Ben chose the healing drugs, then picked up bandages, iodine, tape.
Passing the cosmetic counter (he was amused to see it, too, had been looted), Ben paused as his reflection stared at him from a vanity mirror. He had never thought of himself as handsome; even as a teen-ager, his face had been more trustworthy than handsome. His hair was dark brown, peppered now with gray. His eyes were blue. He was just a shade over six-one—180 pounds. Even though he drank much more than he should, he was in good shape, exercising daily. He turned from his reflection.
He drove past several liquor stores and laughed at their condition: they were the worst looted of the stores. “Party time,” he said with no mirth in his voice. “Eat, drink, and be merry. For tomorrow we may die.”
He drove back to his house and unloaded his gear. I’m a looter, he thought. He built a small fire; then fixed a drink. He kept his mind clear of what he had seen that day, wisely not dwelling on it. Let the shock come gradually. At full dark, when he knew the big 50,000 watters kicked on, Ben spent an hour carefully searching the bands. Nothing. Tomorrow, he thought, I’ll go back to town and find one of those worldwide radios. Somebody is out there.
And I’ve got to search the town for survivors.
He limited himself to only a few drinks, and fixed a good dinner. At nine, the strain of the day taking its toll, he went to bed. He was asleep in three minutes.
He had forgotten the phone!
Ben sat up in bed, cursing his stupidity. He glanced at the clock: seven-thirty. He looked at his wristwatch. Seven-thirty. Yesterday must have had more of an impact on him than he realized. Shock, maybe.
So the electricity was working, at least for a time. So, too, he reasoned, would be the phone system. For a while longer, at least.
He showered, shaved carefully, dressed, and fixed breakfast. He took his coffee outside and stood for a time, viewing the almost silent scene. Birds still sang, and that puzzled him. Somewhere a dog barked, and that puzzled him. Why a gas that would kill humans but not animals?
He looked back through the open front door. He was hesitant to begin the phoning, but it was something he knew he had to do.
He had to try to contact his parents, his brothers, his sisters. He walked back into the house. With a fresh cup of coffee in his hand, he began punching out the numbers for long distance. He called his parents first, then his oldest brother, up in Chicago, letting the phone ring twenty times at each number. No answer. Really, he wasn’t expecting any. He went down the line, all the way to his youngest sister, in Cairo, Illinois. Nothing.
With a sigh, he replaced the phone in its cradle. He picked up his weapons and drove into town.
He went first to the local Radio Shack (it had not been looted), and picked out a huge worldwide receiver. He sat outside the store, on the curb, reading the material on the receiver; then turned on the big radio. It didn’t work—no batteries.
“Wonderful, Ben,” he muttered. “Marvelous presence of mind.”
He found batteries for the radio and turned it on, spinning the dial slowly, working first one band, then another. Sweat broke out on his face as he heard a voice spring from the speakers.
The voice spoke in French for a time, then switched to German, finally to English. “We pieced together the whole story.” The voice spoke slowly. “Finally. Russian pilot told us this is what happened—from his side of the pond, that is. They—the Russians—had developed some sort of virus that would kill humans, but not harm animals or plant life or water. Did this about three years ago. Were going to use it against us this fall. Easy to figure why. Then they learned of the double cross. The Stealth-equipped sub. That shot their plans of an easy takeover all to hell. Everything became all confused. If we had tried to talk to them, or they with us, or the Chinese, maybe all this could have been prevented. Maybe not. Too late now. Some survivors worldwide. Have talked with some of them. Millions dead. Don’t know how many. Over a billion, probably. Maybe more. Ham operators working. It’s bad. God in heaven—it’s bad.”
The message was repeated, over and over, in four languages.
“Goddamned tape recording!” Ben cursed. But he felt a little better. At least he knew what had happened. Sort of. But some of the message confused him: that part about “easy to figure why.”
A snarling brought him to his feet, the .45 in his hand. A pack of dogs stood a few yards from him, and they were not at all friendly.
Ben leaped for the hood of his truck just as a large German shepherd lunged for him, fangs bared. He scrambled for the roof of the cab as the dog leaped onto the hood. Ben shot it in the head, the force of the heavy slug slamming the animal backward.
The dogs remembered gunfire. They ran down the street, stopped on the corner, and turned around, snarling and barking at the man atop the cab of his truck. Ben emptied the .45 into the pack, knocking several of them spinning. The rest ran away. Ben slapped a fresh clip in the .45 and climbed down. Shaken, he stood for a moment waiting for the trembles to leave him. He looked around him, carefully.
“From now on, Ben,” he said aloud. “That Thompson becomes a part of you. Just like your arm.”
He picked up the radio and got in his truck. “All I need is rabies,” he said. “I live through a worldwide catastrophe and a fucking dog does me in.”
He held out his hands; they were calm. He knew he must search for survivors in the town, and he was not
