M. Banner - Desolation

A few days ago, he had told his wife this day was coming, explaining his plan and showing her their “bug-out bags,” as Señor Max called them. They were packed with medicines, a change of clothes, about a day’s worth of water and a week’s of food. The trip to Max’s house was maybe two hours, but they had to plan on being followed, like Miguel believed they were now. Max had said to him so many times, “Plan for the worst, Miguel, but pray for the best. That way, it will most likely be better than what you planned for.” Water was too heavy to carry for multiple days, but the extra rations of food could be used to bargain for water. A lot of people were not connected to the city’s water system, but most had a gravity-fed water system holding fifty- to one-hundred-fifty-gallons, and most were rationing so they hadn’t run out. Food was a different story. Most folks had run out of food now, so it was Miguel and Maria’s most valuable asset. They had about another mile to go, and he was sure that they had slipped away in time, unseen by the gang.

“ ¡Ay, no chingues! ” said a voice from inside Miguel and Maria’s home. Danny “Diablo” Diaz—his men just called him El Diablo or the devil—walked into the spare bedroom and saw floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with food, water, and other supplies. It was enough to sustain this family for months, maybe longer. So much food and water for so few people . El Diablo considered why some common worker would know to store up so much.

“Where are these people?” he demanded of his men.

“Don’t know, Jefe,” another man said from the kitchen. “But I think they leave today,” he reasoned. “Look, no dust on the sink.”

How did they know ? He wondered. He and his men rifled through a desk in the storage room, full of papers, craving an answer to this question. Some papers told him the owner’s name was Miguel Fernandez. Searching further, they found a hand-drawn, folded map. El Diablo glanced at it and recognized the location immediately. “I know this place. This is where they are. And this is where we’ll find all the supplies we need. Get our men and meet me back in front in two minutes,” El Diablo ordered his man in Spanish. He dropped the map on the desk and left. The map showed the ocean and several beach houses. One house had an “X” over it, and the name “Max” written on it.

Miguel knocked on Max’s door again. He and Maria waited patiently.

“Where is Señor Max? Why doesn’t he answer?” She was rocking Ana, swaddled from the sun, and keeping her quiet. She and her husband wore clothes more suited to the winter: hoodies, long pants, and sunglasses. Yet, it was at least a hundred degrees today, probably a lot more. They were hot, sweaty, and very tired, but they were protected from the sun.

“Maybe Max’s friends, Señor King and his family, are home,” Miguel beckoned his wife, as he advanced quickly to the house next door. Maria seemed unwilling to step out of the shadows and into the baking sunlight once more, but reluctantly followed.

It only took one knock this time and Bill King opened up, with a welcoming grin and handshake as if Miguel and his family were old friends. They had met once when Max had him help him work on both their homes. They shared the same friendship with Max, and many of the same secrets.

“Max told us that you might come by. Come on in and let me get all of you some water to drink. You look hot,” Bill said.

“Where is Max? He no home.” Miguel frowned and wiped his forearm across his brow.

“The Ochoa drug gang has him,” Lisa responded from the kitchen. “I’m Lisa. Our daughter Sally is next door at Max’s house, but we told her to not answer the door. Please come in, take off your hot jackets, and introduce me to your baby.” Lisa came out wiping her hands on a towel, smiling warmly to them, taking much joy in offering comfort to Max’s friends.

Melanie led a dozen men and women down Grand Avenue two blocks east of the Union Pacific railroad tracks in the old town center, or what its residents now referred to as Fort Laramie.

By any measure, Fort Laramie was an amazing creation: forty city blocks walled off from the rest of Laramie by up-ended cars and a wood scaffolding walkway on top, running the entire perimeter of the wall’s squared shape. The walls were bounded by and ran parallel to the railroad tracks on the west, the University of Wyoming campus on the east, North Clark Avenue on the north, and Custer Street on the south. This area’s college-based population was at its lowest level this time of year; the university kids were on summer break and the owners and employees of its symbiotic businesses were on vacation until the fall. That left four hundred and six close-knit residents in their walled community, many of whom had known each other their whole lives.

Fort Laramie had been Melanie and Carrington’s home for the last twenty-two days, where they lived together under the same roof and perpetuated the little white lie of being husband and wife. It started as a slip of her tongue, when one of the town’s young men made a pass, but from there it just grew. Pretty soon her hometown of Laramie, where she’d lived through high school, bought into her story. It felt safe and with what she had been through, the last thing she needed was unwanted advances from the single men, whose chances of finding any unencumbered woman in this sealed-up town were dwindling with each day. After she told him her reasons, Carrington played along completely, as she suspected he would.

Their relationship however, was no mere contrivance; they felt an instant connection, born out of mutual respect. Maybe it was his older age, or his chivalry, which he somehow demonstrated without being sexist, or simply that they were both scientists. Regardless, she felt safe with him. Their (admittedly phony) marital status and their work for the town earned them a private room, off a workshop—what was once a waterbed store, so they could work together in the day, and sleep together at night. The bedroom only had one bed, but Carrington had been a gentleman and insisted on sleeping on the floor.

Their affection for each other grew as they spent many hours working together. After a few days, it no longer felt to either as if they were perpetuating a ruse. To everyone around them they appeared to be a happy couple, because they were. Had their civilized world not ended, Carrington and Melanie would have explored their romance further. However, the passion they focused on at present was the town’s ability to defend itself. Every waking hour was devoted to it.

The idea for this project had germinated in Carrington’s head for years, and especially over the many miles he traveled before reaching Laramie. He conceived a tangible design when he pedaled, near death, over the Highway 130 bridge and saw the railroad tracks below. The image was one of the last things pasted into his consciousness before he passed out from gastrointestinal illness and exhaustion. When he shared his idea with Melanie and the town, everyone was excited about making it work, believing it might be the town’s only salvation from the threats building outside its walls. The town council, led by the town manager, Bob Smucker, assigned them almost thirty men and women from the wall detail and supply teams to help them put it into place.

“Watch out, don’t get too close to that track, you know the jolt could be deadly,” Melanie called out to her group as they hauled the single steel rail through the town, each desperately trying to hold onto the rail-tongs. They were trudging much too close to the connected single rail-spur, which snaked from the existing tracks down Grand, the main road down the center of town, to one of the rail-lines. Melanie had quipped that from above, it must have looked like some errant eyebrow hair that needed to be plucked.