One Second After

“I know this is illogical. It’s just that we’re Americans. We and the Brits especially are alike in this. We see something more in our pets than just brute beasts. For old people alone, they’re a final source of comfort and love. For children, the beloved buddy that understands even when adults don’t…”

He was ashamed, he was starting to cry.

“I’d kill every dog in the town if I could save one life by it,” Kellor snapped back.

“That will take something out of us forever, maybe a line I don’t want to cross, would rather not live in… No.”

“The line is there,” Kellor replied. “It is there no matter what.” Charlie stirred.

“How about this then? Loose animals will be shot and given to the communal food supply. Owners must keep pets inside or leashed. If an owner decides to dispatch a pet on their own, they can keep it for their own food supply. Is that agreeable?”

Tom jumped on it and nodded.

“Fine then.”

“And every day they’ll lose weight, that could be turned into food,” Kellor snapped, “and eat food that people will give to them, even as they’re starving.”

“That’s their choice,” Tom replied.

He seemed ashamed of his emotional display, wiped his face, and stood up.

“Anything else, Charlie?” Charlie shook his head sadly.

“John, that broadcast we should monitor from now on. We’ll pull an old car radio, get some batteries, and rig out an antenna.”

“Good idea.”

“Maybe they’ll be coming soon,” Charlie said hopefully. “Sure, Charlie. Maybe they will.”

John left the meeting and started for home. The radio was now set on the dial to the Voice of America channel, but it was only static, maybe a whisper of a voice for a second or two, then static again.

He thought of stopping in to see Hamid, perhaps try to trade something for a few cigarettes to round out his day, even though it was still only mid-morning. The meeting had worn him to the edge.

He opened the glove compartment; extra ammo for the Glock strapped to his side was in there, along with what he called his reserve, a cigarette. He lit it up, inhaling deeply as he pulled onto State Street and drove past the elementary school. The once beautiful front lawn was now ragged, beat down, torn out in places. Some kids were down in the playground, playing baseball. They already looked skinnier to him, reminding him of photos of German kids playing in the rubble after World War II.

The cook fire was going. Today it was horse; one of the older beasts, close to death, had been shot. A crowd was gathered round it, butchering it, legs sticking up, yet another memory of a World War II film, of German civilians in rubble-strewn Berlin, hacking at a dead animal. One of Tom’s men standing by, shotgun cradled casually under his arm, was watching the proceedings. Everything, every ounce of fat, bone, innards, everything would go into the kettle. Some greens would be mixed in, and there were at least fifty or more people standing around listlessly, watching every move hungrily.

John passed the school, continued on, the interstate to his left. Makala’s Beemer still resting where it had rolled to a stop thirty-five days ago. He was tempted to drive the extra mile up to the isolation hospital, stand outside, and call for her. If he stepped in, he was stuck there for at least three days. He missed her. He slowed, drove past the turnoff to his house, and continued on, but then on reaching the turn to the conference center he figured he’d better not. So he continued on, driving several hundred more yards to a bridge that spanned over the interstate just behind the gap. He got out of the car, nursing his cigarette for one more puff before he got down to the filter.

The sound of the car running caused some of his old students, standing guard on the bridge, to turn. At the sight of him they waved.

His old students, my kids, he always called them. Hell, Mary and I were the same age when we met and no one could have defined us as kids to ourselves and she most definitely was not a kid at twenty… He remembered so many insane nights with her when neither got a wink of sleep till dawn and then they went to classes. And yet now, the years stretching away, those standing guard were indeed kids in his eyes.

They were uniformed. Blue jogging trousers of the college, blue long-sleeve shirts, college baseball caps… and guns. Several were in the baggy white hazmat suits. One of the girls, hunting rifle poised, was talking across the double barrier of stalled cars to a band of refugees on the other side. She had sat in his 101 class only the semester before. Cute, yes, a bit sexy looking with her long blond hair, blue eyes, and tight blouses, but still just a kid to him now, his own daughter not much more than two years younger.

And now his former student stood with rifle poised, drilled to fire if anyone did indeed try to scramble over the cars and break through.