William Forstchen - One Second After

“John, while we work here, I want you to lead in the town. Charlie is a good man, a damn good man, but his focus, it’s on the moment, on survival for the community, and God bless him for it. But we need something more. We need someone with vision who can see beyond, like the song said, ‘to patriots’ dreams…’ You have the respect of everyone in this town now. The kids, the community, the police, Charlie, everyone.”

“Why?” John said coldly. “Because I fumbled the job of blowing some junkie’s brains out?”

“No, because of what you said before you blew his brains out, as you now so crudely put it. Maybe that poor devil-consumed kid really did have a purpose in life after all. Maybe it was to give you that moment.

“For some, the fact that you did shoot him, well, for some that created fear and awe. But for the rest, they heard your words and will not forget them. John, that gives you a power. And you did hold the rank of colonel and were offered a star, which you turned down for Mary’s sake. Mary’s family is an old family here and you tossing over being a general to bring her home was the talk of the town back then, and I think you saw on day one the respect everyone held for you.”

Frankly, he did not; he was far too focused on Mary and, yes, somewhat bitter as well that the powers that be in the Pentagon had not found a way around his problem, but that was in the past and for so many reasons now especially he thanked God he was here in this place.

“Dan, my entire combat experience was a hundred hours in Desert Storm, nearly all of it locked up in a command Bradley, one minor jolt when a shell landed a hundred yards away, and that was it. Heck, give it to Washington. He’s the DI; he’s the guy who was at Kha Sanh.”

“He doesn’t want it and he fully agrees with what I’m saying here now.

“He explained it to me the other day when we began to plan this unit and the question came up of command. I left it open, at first thinking he’d take it, but he immediately said you should be the one.”

“What did he say?”

“He laughed. Said he knew he was the best DI in the United States Marine Corps, but it takes more than that to lead an army. He wants someone with an advanced education, someone who will remain cool under stress, someone who’s studied war and knows the history of it and can thus apply it in a crisis. Of course that means you, John. I think if it ever comes to a major fight it should be Washington on the firing line, but he wants someone like you behind him.”

“I still think he should lead.”

“He’s von Steuben out there, John, even though his name is Washington, and he knows that. It’s your job and Charlie agreed that if a crisis comes where a militia is needed, you lead it.”

“Thanks, as if I wanted it.”

“John, if you really did want it, I don’t think your name would have been in the hat. We wanted someone who would see it as a service and, above all else, even while defending this community would be thinking ahead to afterwards.

“John, we dream of America. We want America to come to us. But I think it never will. The America we knew died when those warheads burst. If so, then it is up to us to not wait, but instead to rebuild America as we want it to be.”

There was an air of celebration in the crowd that gathered about the town hall as John pulled into what was now his usual slot in front of the fire station.

The fire trucks, which had been rolled out over a month ago to make room for the emergency supplies stockpiled inside, were still in place, still motionless, no longer sparkling, somewhat dusty. Horses were tethered to the bumper of one of them.

The crowd stood around expectantly and many, seeing him approach, stepped back slightly, nodding greetings respectfully.

All were showing signs of the effects after thirty-five days. Faces were thinner, pinched on some. Clothing in general was dirty, sweat stained; hair, greasy, many of the men beginning to sport beards. And all of them stank. He wondered if this was indeed how people really smelled a hundred years ago, the scent of a crowd of unwashed bodies, or was it that thirty-six days ago people were used to sterility, terrified if their deodorant failed and they “offended,” nearly all taking a shower at least once a day, many twice a day in the summer?

Was this now normal? Was this how Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln smelled, so normal that it just was no longer really noticed?

Tom appeared at the door of the police wing of the building, grinning.

“It works!”

A ragged cheer went up from the crowd, which then gradually began

to drift apart, though many pressed up to the doorway and windows to look into the conference room as if what was inside was some sort of miracle.

John edged his way through and into the building. “We’ll start in a few minutes, but for right now, let’s enjoy this,” Tom replied.

John stepped into the conference room and had to smile at the sight of the old crank phone attached to the wall.

“Yes, yes, I hear you!” Charlie shouted, earphone in one hand, bending over slightly to shout into the speaker.

“Yes, I understand. It works; now keep setting up the wire. Yes, over and out here. Good-bye.”

He hung up and turned to face the gathering.

“We got a phone system.”

There was a round of applause picked up by those gathered outside.

John looked at the contraption, salvaged from an antique store, as he suggested, a comparable phone now set up in the police station in Swannanoa. It had taken the work of a dozen linemen, older employees of the phone company, several of them refugees allowed in through the gap.

Fiber-optics, modern wiring systems, were out. They had to find old-fashioned copper wire, a hard task, but bits and pieces were salvaged from a variety of sources, a golden find an old abandoned telephone or telegraph line of several miles along the railroad tracks. The wire had to be carefully spliced together, then strung on glass or ceramic insulators, most made out of soda bottles.

It was the first line, the goal now to run it into Asheville. Remarkably, an old-style switchboard had been found in the basement of the granddaughter of a phone operator from the twenties. When the system had been junked back in the fifties, apparently the old lady had her board toted home as a keepsake. A couple of the elderly phone company workers were now trying to remember how to rig it up, an actual switchboard that could handle dozens of phones.

There were other accomplishments. One of the junkyards in Swannanoa had successfully gotten a tractor-trailer diesel from the early sixties running. That had triggered intense debate as to who would get it, the fire department finally winning out, and on a flatbed were now attached hoses, ladders, and gear. They had even figured out how to use the engine as a power takeoff to run a water pump.

Fire had become a frightful hazard. Those who still had food were cooking with wood, and home fires and brush fires were commonplace. The community still had water pressure for those places lower than 2500-foot altitude, the height of the face of the reservoir dam. But above that, it was hauling buckets, and the potential of house fires turning into out-of-control forest fires kept everyone worried.

Between the two communities there were now over a hundred vehicles running and more coming online every day. Several mechanics had learned to bypass and yank out the electronics, especially on cars that only had minimal dependence on them, slap on some old replacements, and get the engines to turn over again.

A moped shop had become highly successful at getting their relatively simple machines running again, along with older motorcycles.