One Second After

But for her, the risk of flu was no longer the concern.

It was Jennifer all were focused on now. The remaining insulin had finally lost all potency two weeks back, more than a month earlier than John had planned for. With the final bottle Makala risked several injections that finally totaled 800 units to bring Jennifer’s blood sugar level back down from 520 to 145. It was now back over 600, climbing, and six days ago she had collapsed. All the symptoms that Kellor had long warned John about were now full-blown. Extreme thirst at first, nearly uncontrollable urinating, a simple scuffed knee that had never really healed over now raging with infection, red streaks up nearly to her groin, her fever soaring to 103. Her immune system had failed, kidneys were failing… her precious little body was shutting down.

He knew he should drive up to the gap to check on the guard there, but that had to wait. The drive around town had fulfilled John’s duty for the moment, though as he turned the corner past the ruins of the Front Porch he could see, up the street, two bodies lying out along the curb, waiting to be picked up, and made a mental note to call Bartlett.

John pulled into his usual slot in front of the town hall and got out, Makala joining him.

Judy was actually the person who was the center of the town as the switchboard operator, having risen from the quiet role of a secretary. She knew every call coming in and out, lived at the office, and at night monitored the battery-powered radio, pulled out of the blue Mustang, listening for news from the outside, which she would then post each morning on the whiteboard outside town hall.

As he walked in he could see the latest, a report that Asheville supposedly had a reliable two-way radio link with Charleston. Four emergency supply trucks had arrived in Greenville, South Carolina, and one was promised to Asheville by the end of the week. She had not posted the news, though, when she had called into him just after dawn, that a helicopter had landed yesterday evening at Memorial Hospital, reportedly carrying a load of medicines.

That knowledge would trigger an attempt by those still capable of moving to get into Asheville, and he knew that Asheville would not let any of them through the barrier near Exit 53 that was now a permanently fortified position, definitely payback for their defiance regarding the refugees back in the spring. The few refugees from outside trying to get farther west were allowed through, but anyone from Swannanoa or Black Mountain seeking to cross the line to barter was blocked.

He walked into the office, Judy looking up from her switchboard.

“Hi, boss.”

“Judy, connect me to Memorial Hospital. Put it through to my line and the line in the conference room.”

“I’ll get on it.”

John went into his office, the office that had been Charlie’s. John had not changed it all that much, the only addition a framed Polaroid picture of the survivors of what was now called the First Battalion, Black Mountain Rangers. Eighty-one soldiers, standing in front of Gaither Hall, the picture taken a week after the battle. They looked twenty years older than the kids in another picture beside it, the annual graduation photo of all the seniors, taken just two days before “The Day.” Some were in both photos. The kids in the graduation photo looked fresh, ready to go out and take on the world with enthusiasm and joy. The rangers, they looked as if they could take on the world, by killing. The picture always made him think of a painting by Tom Lea, a combat artist of the Second World War, of a shell-shocked marine at Peleliu called The Two Thousand Yard Stare. “Boss, I got a line open. Pick up.”

John lifted the rotary phone off the cradle and there was a crackling hum.

“Memorial Hospital.” The voice sounded faint, distant.

“This is Black Mountain calling,” Judy said. “Can you connect a call to the hospital director, Dr. Vance, from Dr. Matherson, director of public safety in Black Mountain?”

Makala had advised Judy to use John’s old title. Doctors of the M.D. kind looked down on doctors of the Ph.D. kind, but still, it would help to get through.

“Please hold,” came the voice from the other end.

John looked across at Makala, who was standing at the crank phone in the conference room.

Five minutes passed, then ten. He sat on his desk, waiting nervously, heart racing, the only sound static and then a distant voice.

“Vance here.”

“Dr. Vance. This is,” he hesitated, “Matherson, director of public safety for Black Mountain.”

“What do you want?”

He could hear the exhaustion in Vance’s voice. John looked over at Makala and nodded. He was afraid if he continued, emotion would take over, and the man on the other end had no time for emotional appeals.