Alas, Babylon

He walked on alone under the oak arch excluding starlight, secure in night’s black velvet cloak yet walking silently, eyes, ears, and even nose alert. So he had learned, in the dark hammocks as a boy hunting game, in the dark mountains as a man hunting man. Before The Day, except in hunting or in war, a five—or tenmile walk would have been unthinkable. Now it was routine for all of them except Dan and after Dan got out of bed it would become routine for him too. But all their shoes were wearing out. In another month or two Ben Franklin and Peyton would be without shoes entirely. Not only were the children walking (or running) everywhere but their feet inconsiderately continued to grow, straining canvas and leather. Randy told himself that he must discover whether Eli Blaustein still held shoes. He knew what Blaustein wanted-meat.

Marines Park was empty. As he nailed up his order board an animal scuttled out from under the bandstand. At first he thought it a possum but when he caught its silhouette against the starlit river he saw it was an armadillo.

Walking through the business section, he wondered whether armadillos were good eating. Before The Day he had heard someone say that there were several hundred thousand armadillos in Florida. This was strange, because before the first boom there had been no armadillos at all. Randy’s father had related the story.

Some real estate promoter on the East Coast had imported two from Texas for a roadside zoo. Knowing nothing of the habits of armadillos, the real estate man had penned them behind chicken wire. When darkness fell, the armadillos instantly burrowed out, and within a few years armadillos were undermining golf greens and dumping over citrus trees from St. Augustine to Palm Beach. They had spread everywhere, having no natural enemies in the state except automobiles. Since the automobile had been all but exterminated by the hydrogen bomb, the armadillo population was certain to multiply. Soon there would be more armadillos than people in Florida.

It was Saturday night, but in the business blocks of Yulee and St. Johns no light showed nor did he see a human being. In the residential area perhaps half the houses showed a light, but rarely from more than one room. He had not seen a moving vehicle since leaving home, and not until he reached the pine shanties and patchwork bungalows of Pistolville did he see a person. These people were shadows, swiftly fading behind a half opened door or bobbing from house to house. It was night, and Fort Repose was in fear.

He was relieved when he saw lights in the Hernandez house. Anything could have happened since he and Dan had stopped there. Pete could have died and Rita could have decamped; or she could have been killed, the house pillaged, and everything she was holding, including the truck and gasoline, stolen.

He knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” Rita’s voice said. He knew she would have the shotgun up and ready.

“Rand “ y.”

She opened the door. She was holding a shotgun, as he guessed. She stared at his costume. “Come in. Looking for a handout?”

“In a sense, yes.”

“What happened? Your two women run you off?”

As she laid down the gun the burn still showed on her ring finger. He said, “How’s Pete?”

“Weaker. How’s Doctor Gunn?” “You heard about it, then?”

“Sure. I hear all the bad news in a hurry nowadays. We call it lip radio.”

The word had come to town, Randy guessed, via Alice Cooksey, earlier in the day. Just as Alice brought the town news to River Road, so each day she carried the news from River Road to town. Once spoken in the library, the news would spread through Fort Repose, street to street and house to house. He said, “You know Doctor Gunn lost his bag with all his instruments and what drugs he had left, and his glasses. So, if we can, we have to get those highwaymen and that’s why I came to you, Rita.”

“They’re not Pistolville people,” she said. “These Pistolville crackers hardly have got gumption enough to rob each other. Now I heard them described and one of them-the young one with two guns-was probably Leroy Settle, a punk who lived on the other side of town. His mother still lives there, I think. Maybe if you stake out his house you’ll get a shot at him.”

“I don’t want him in particular,” Randy said. “I want them all. I want them and everybody like them.” And he told her what his plan was, exactly, and why he must have the grocery truck and the gasoline, if she had any. He knew he must trust her entirely or not at all.

She listened him out and said nothing.

“If you are left alone here, Rita,” he said, “With all the canned food and other stuff you’ve got, you’re bound to become a target. When they’ve cleaned out what’s on the roads, they’ll start on the houses.”

“I’m way ahead of you.” Her eyes met his steadily. She was evaluating him, and all the chances, all the odds. She made her decision. “I think you can get away with it, Randy.”

“You’re holding gas, then?”