“Sir, please take a seat.” A man had said.
“Look, I need to get home. I live on a farm and they need me.” Ian told the clerk.
“I’m sorry sir, the city is now in lockdown. Don’t worry, this is just until they can get the rioting under control. This is for your own safety.”
“But I’d be safe if you’d just let me go home. I’d be one less person you’d have to deal with.” Ian argued, trying to make some sense out of the situation.
“It’s out of my control sir. We’re all trying to work to get things normalized. I’m sorry. Now, I need to go over your medical history.” The clerk said, looking at his computer.
“What? My medical history. Why?”
“You’ll be going into quarantine sir, because of the radioactive fallout, we want to make sure you’re safe. Also, you’ll be released into the Hive population and we want to make sure you’re not sick or susceptible to anything. You know, allergies and so on.”
Ian just stared at the man, as though he’d lost his mind. None of this made sense, none of it. Dread tickled at the back of his brain. Something wasn’t right, something was wrong with all of this. The whole construct was something offensive. It was like one of those movies, where the main character is sane, but the world around him is insane. But the world tells him, no, that he’s the one that is crazy and the world is normal. But it wasn’t normal, nothing about this was normal. He looked around at the people and the word sheep drifted through his brain. They were all sheep, being led to slaughter.
SIX
Franktown, CO
Milly wiped her hands dry. She’d finished up the dishes. Everyone was in the living room, around the woodstove. The room was toasty and snug. A soft smile curved on her face as she watched her granddaughters. Christmas had been solemn among the adults, but they’d managed to make it magical for the girls. Milly had gone into the attic and had rummaged through the old junk that she kept up there, unable to throw any of it away. She’d found Laura and Marybeth’s old toys and games. She’d selected a couple things and had brought them down and cleaned them up. They had a few years’ worth of Christmas toys; all they would need to do was resurrect them. Perhaps Quinn and Bart could also make things, in the future, like a swing or some such.
Laura had helped her clean the found toys up. The toys weren’t new, but they were in good condition.
“Thanks mom, the girls were really happy this morning.” Laura grinned, walking over to her mother. She slid her arms around her mother’s neck and kissed her on the cheek.
“Well, we can’t go to stores, but we can make do. Those cloth dolls you made, turned out sweet. I think the girls liked those the best.” Milly grinned at her daughter.
“Sure, if you don’t take in the crappy sewing.” Laura chuckled, her eyes crinkling. Milly hugged her daughter. Since shooting that bastard in the front yard, her daughter had finally stepped up to the plate and accepted the new world they lived in. She had stopped moping around for Hogan, who was never coming home. Milly loved her son-in-law, but the man was lost to them. If the reports they heard on the radio were even fractionally true, then there was no coming back from this. Their government had made a horrible situation worse.
All they could do, was pick up the pieces and move on. She also saw something budding between Quinn and her daughter. She smiled. Quinn was a good man. Zoe had been a sweet woman and had died too soon. But Milly was a pragmatist, and life went on, with or without the dead. Laura went back over to sit on the floor, they were playing a board game. Quinn was holding Allain and Alexa laid up against him. Laura was saying something, and Quinn grinned.
Milly watched the interlocutors; their body language spoke more than their words. Bart said it was a confluence of romance. She tittered at the thought. Bart was such a romantic. Christ. She looked at her husband, who was sound asleep in his lounger. His mouth slightly opened, a book resting on his stomach. He’d taken his boots off and his feet popped out from the knitted afghan that covered him. One toe poked shyly through a hole in the sock. She’d have to mend that.
Quinn had shot a turkey the day before, so they had turkey for their Christmas dinner. They’d all eaten their fill, for once setting aside the careful measure of food. It was Christmas after all. The turkey had put Bart into a coma. Grunting with amusement, she went to the couch. She looked out the window, the light was fading fast. There was heavy snow on the ground, and a hush outside. She’d close the heavy curtains in a few minutes. She saw the beautiful violet streaks across the sky, the clouds purple, pink and blue, reflected on the snow. It had been a good day. No one came by. With the cold and snow, it kept people in. Come January, it would kill many. She wondered at the people in Denver. Were there any alive? There were no fireplaces in those nice apartment buildings, so how would they keep warm?
No, if they’d not been killed by the bombs, starvation, or violence, then the bitter cold would kill them. January and February were brutal and the cold wind and windchill made it deadly, along with deep snow. Inside their home was roughly at about fifty-eight degrees. The heat did go up into the second floor. Everyone
