Walter Greatshell - Apocalypticon

"Over here," the man says.

The hummock is actually a dugout shack, little more than a jumble of construction debris under a turf ceiling. It reminds Bobby of forts he and Felix built: plywood and cinder blocks and waste lumber, all covered with plastic tarp.

"Give me a hand," the man says, pulling up a heavy slab of plywood to reveal an opening down into the ground. Bobby pitches in, and in a second he's looking at a roomy bunker at least six feet deep, its walls shored up with dirt-packed stones. Cookware, tools, and personal articles are stuffed into cubbyholes. A stepladder leads down to a dry wooden platform on which there are rugs, a chair, a steamer trunk serving as a table, a gas lamp, a bookshelf, a bedroll, and a rusty filing cabinet. To one side is a small niche containing a camp stove, quantities of canned and dry goods, a washbasin, and a barrel of water. Altogether a regular little den-a Hobbit house with all its cozy bric-a-brac. Dim daylight filters in through plastic water bottles.

The man picks up a garbage bag and offers it to Bobby. "Want a donut?"

Bobby shakes his head.

"Still fresh-they just tossed 'em last night."

"I'm not really hungry."

"Suit yourself."

While the man heats a pot of water for tea, Bobby looks up at that remote circle of sky. From here he can't hear anything that's going on in the city-Providence seems very far away. Does that mean he's safe? Maybe it's over for now, the running and terror. Maybe the worst of it is done with, and soon everything can go back to normal. Some things never will, of course, not anymore, but maybe some things can.

Bobby Rubio sits down to wait.

"Sir, I've got traffic. Very close-under a thousand yards, bearing three one oh."

"That's inland!" Kranuski bolted from his stateroom and rushed to the sonar suite. "What's their heading?" he demanded, buttoning his shirt. On the flat-panel monitors, he could see the familiar saw-toothed waves of different small-craft signatures.

"They're upriver," Phil Tran said. "Reception's bad in these shallows, but I'd say they're idling or moving away. At least four-no, five contacts: three light diesels, low rpms, and now two high-speed impellers-probably Jet Skis or something similar. I'm catching a lot of support activity, too. Sounds like heavy machinery and general deck noise. Somebody's got a regular little marina going out there. I guess we know who set those fires."

"Sir?" Jack Kraus called. "Topside watch reports smoke and sounds of organized activity, bearing three one oh."

Kranuski went to the control room and raised the periscope. The mouths of two rivers opened into this uppermost arm of the bay: the Providence River, immediately astern, which passed through downtown and was where they had seen the signal fires, and the Seekonk River, which lay half a mile east. Getting his bearings, he followed the contours of the nearby shore eastward to where it cut inland at the mouth of the Seekonk. Around that bend, rising above a line of trees, he could see a thin plume of smoke.

"Goddammit," he said. "All right, let's be ready for them. All hands to battle stations. Mr. Robles, muster an armed detail and post them on deck. Make sure they look as intimidating as possible."

"Yes, sir. Uh, sir, the Moguls cleaned us out good. Except for those ceremonial carbines and a few personal sidearms, we're down to slingshots."

"I know that! I said try to look intimidating! Make more rifles out of broomsticks if you have to. And don't knock slingshots-remember Davy and Goliath. Here, take my gun. Mr. Webb, you rig the outboard and organize a quick recon patrol around the point so we at least know what we're up against."

They didn't go to the submarine.

At the mouth of the river, just beyond the interstate highway bridge, was a flotilla of two massive cargo barges, each one half the length of a football field, each with its own tugboat. One was a junkyard pyramid assembled from big metal shipping containers-tractor trailers stacked in colorful tiers like so many Legos, with labels like MAERSK and SEA LAND, sharing deck space with the enormous crane that had put them there. The other barge was more striking, its tall white superstructure resembling that of an old-time riverboat, including smokestacks and paddle wheel, though the latter appeared to be purely ornamental; it didn't touch the water. Other amphibious vehicles were there, too, as well as small watercraft of all kinds.

As the duck boat drew closer, Sal could see that holes had been cut into some of the cargo boxes, making jack-o'-lantern-crude windows, and that there were lights inside and fuming stovepipes on top. Some of these perforated containers were homes for people, not cargo. And there were other, weirder shantytown structures: faulty towers banged together out of plywood and corrugated metal, with blue plastic port-a-johns jutting on planks over the water.

Yes, people were living out here by the hundreds, perhaps thousands, packed together like junkyard bees in a rusty hive. Sal could smell them: mingled odors of raw sewage, trash, and fryer grease. He could see and hear them, too. Some shot hoops while others called out bets from windows and still others hooted down from rooftop deck chairs, cracking beers. A better life than that aboard the submarine, clearly-this was a well-functioning caravan, a whole floating village, a Mongol horde. A Mogul horde.

As they passed under the bridge, and the view opened up, Sal was startled to see two more duck boats plowing toward them, heading inland. The crews catcalled and made crude gestures at each other as they passed. The sudden sense of relative normalcy, of routine human traffic, was overwhelming. Sal hadn't felt this way since first catching sight of… of…

Thule, he thought apprehensively. The Mogul base.

"So who do you guys work for?" he asked.

"Work for? We work for ourselves, son. We're independent contractors." Marcus seemed offended at the very thought.

Sal held his tongue. Could it be they weren't connected to the Moguls after all? Or maybe they just didn't know they were. Coombs and the Navy men hadn't known-not until they got to Thule. Feeling a buzz of possibility, Sal asked, "Are you all refugees?"

"Lifers, boy! Reapers! Skinwalker Platoon, Rodeo Zulu Tango! The one and only Hopalong Cassidy Phalanx out of Huntsville, Alabama."

"Is that the Army?"

"Is that the Army? Shee-it! That's the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, rolled into one! That's the full and complete membership of the Huntsville Prison Rodeo Association! We're George Washington, brother! We're Thomas fuckin' Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Lewis and Clark! We're Paul Bunyan, Wild Bill Hickok, and John Henry! We're the Founding Fathers, y'unnerstan? Forget your dead white men, we the dudes they gonna write history books about, the ones who redraw the maps and make up the laws. While everybody else just accepts the way things are, we make up reality to suit us. This is our country now, and we its new hee-roes! When men get back around to building monuments, they'll be dedicating them to us. When they name all the new states and territories, they'll be naming them after us! Naw, they won't even have to name them, because we already done it. Look around you, boy-you ain't in New England no more. On that side of the river is the great state of Shaka Zulu, New Africa, granted by solemn treaty to the Mau-Mau Brotherhood. On the eastern shore you got the Mexican paradise of Aztlan, laid claim to by our brothers in La Raza. And we ain't leavin' out the white folk: White Pride staked out some sweet reservations for y'all down around Connecticut and Long Island-the Aryan Evangelical Co-Prosperity Sphere. And this here's the People's Expedition of the New United States! Uncle Spam has granted us charter to all the lands we can claim… so long as we keep up our end of the bargain."