One Second After

“Well, to Black Mountain for one. The new guy in charge, I don’t even know him, he told me we’re supposed to take five thousand refugees from the city. Didn’t ask, no discussion. An order like he was now the dictator of the mountains.

“Almost the first words out of his mouth when I reported in to him. They want to spread their people out all over the region, as far west as Waynesville, north to Mars Hill, south to Flat Rock.”

“Why?”

“Because they think we have food, that’s why. The water thing is just an excuse. Hell, they’re right on the French Broad River. I heard they even have a tank truck that can haul five thousand gallons at a clip. It’s just an excuse. It’s about the food.”

“Do we have as much on hand as they do?” John replied.

Charlie shook his head, features angry.

“They got lucky with the stalled trucks on the interstates. A fair number with bulk food on board them, also the rail yard. Two trucks loaded with a hundred hogs even. They were roasting one right behind the courthouse. Dozens of railcars packed with bulk stuff as well down in the Norfolk and Southern rail yard. Got that from the assistant police chief, a good friend.

“I tried to raise with this new tin-plated idiot that the county should pool all resources and he wouldn’t even talk about it, just kept ordering me to prepare to take five thousand refugees starting in a couple of days.”

“Hell, it should be us moving in with them,” Washington said.

“Why then?” John asked, a bit incredulous that control had so completely broken down that even on the county level there was no cooperation.

“He’s planning ahead,” Washington said bitterly. “Far ahead. Get rid of half the people and you have food enough for twice as long and let someone else worry about the rest. And I’ll bet more than one of the inside crowd, some of the political heels up in that office and their cronies, will still be eating good six months from now.

“Besides, it’s like all city folk, they somehow think there’s more food out in the country.”

John sighed. Scale of social order, he thought. The larger the group, the more likely it was that it would fragment under stress, with a few in power looking out for themselves first. Five thousand might be convinced to share and cooperate. A hundred thousand, self-interests, them and us, would begin to take over, especially with the breakdown in communications.

That had always been the power of media in the hands of a good leader. To get individuals to feel as if the leader was speaking directly to them, Churchill in 1940, Jack Kennedy in 1962, and Reagan in the 1980s. A single voice like that now could break the paradigm, but there would be no such voice and a few cronies of an old political machine in a county government hall might start thinking of themselves and their friends first, and the hell with the rest. John could barely imagine what it might be like, at this very minute, in a city of a million, of five or ten million.

“If we let them all in, it will cut in half the time we have before we run out,” Charlie sighed, “and I doubt if they’ll help us then.

“So I figured it was best not to stick around and argue. I just told him I’ll take it back to the town council. He then said it was an order. I didn’t argue. I just got out. As I left, a couple of cops asked me how I got into town and I lied, said I had walked it. Well, that’s why I was running. I got a block or two and they started to follow me.”

“I know this might sound stupid.” It was Jeremiah. “But I thought we were all in this together. We’re neighbors….”

He hesitated.

“We’re Americans….”

John glanced back to the rearview mirror, unable to speak, then focused his attention ahead.

They were up to the turnoff onto Route 70. He went down the ramp, swung onto what he still felt was the correct side of the road, and floored it.

The line of refugees they had passed earlier was actually larger now, more people on foot, some on bicycles, others having already learned the old refugee trick that a bicycle can be a packhorse; loaded it down, properly balanced, it could be pushed along with a couple of hundred pounds.

“Gun,” Washington announced. “Swerve left.”

John swung the old Edsel across the highway. Strange, it was right in front of the DMV office. A week ago, a dozen cops would have been piling out to give him a ticket, the gunman cause for a SWAT team to jump in.

The gunman was the same as before, standing in front of a car dealership, now stepping out, waving his pistol.

Washington raised his AR-15, leveled it out the window. Some refugees were scattering, others just staring at the sight of the Edsel, some just oblivious.

“Don’t do it,” Washington hissed.

As if the man had heard Washington or, far more likely, seen the leveled rifle, he stepped back.

Washington tracked on him as they sped past, then exhaled noisily.

“Professor, I think your student just asked a question,” Washington said calmly.

John, trembling from the tension, spared a quick glance back at Jeremiah, Charlie by his side.