William Forstchen - One Second After

“I’ve been hoping the folks up at Smoky Mountain Railroad might actually get something running with their steam locomotive, their track actually connects down into Asheville, but there hasn’t been a word about it.

“Whatever help is coming in now, it will be from the coast. We are now like America of two hundred years ago. Get a day’s walk in from the coast or a major river and you are in wilderness. So don’t plan anything here with the hope that just maybe the legendary ‘they’ will show up.”

“Maybe isn’t definite,” Charlie replied. “I agree with John on this one. Think of it, Tom; let’s say the navy did steam into Charleston. There’s a million people there without food. Anything beyond spitting distance of the sea I’m not optimistic for right now. Doc, tell us what you are thinking.”

“The rations are running short,” Kellor said. “Compounded by the fact that more and more of our locals are applying for ration cards as well, now that their own food stocks have run out. So even as we run out, there are more mouths to feed.”

John had yet to apply for ration cards for his family. He had always been proficient with a rifle, and using the .22 he had nailed several possums, a number of squirrels for the dogs, and remarkably, just the day before, a torn turkey that had been such a feast that he had invited the Robinson family up to join them, Lee Robinson actually producing a quart bottle of beer and canned corn for the occasion. Makala had been there as well with a chocolate bar she had kept stashed away. Even the dogs had been given some scraps.

The possums, well, they reminded John of the old television series where Granny was always talking about possum pie. Jen was horrified when he had brought the first one in, she tried roasting it in the stove out on the deck, a disaster, but they were learning, even though the darn things were greasy as hell.

“You realize that if we cut back to around nine hundred calories a day we are at nearly the same level as the siege of Leningrad. Resistance is already down; the average person has lost at least fifteen pounds or more. For many that’s actually damn good, but now we start getting into the body eating itself, and not just the reserve fat most Americans carry around.

“Strength will be impacted significantly and I want to talk more about that in a few minutes. For the general population on rations the impact is going to start kicking in within the next couple of weeks. Immunological systems in everybody are weakening, meaning if that flu down in Old Fort gets up here, it will be like the 1918 epidemic that killed nearly two million in America. I’d estimate ten percent of us dying in a matter of days if flu breaks out. I think, Charlie, that we will have to shut down our free passage through the gap or change the procedure. Lord knows how many flu carriers are walking along our interstate every day heading west.”

Charlie sighed and looked over at John and Tom.

“We do that,” Tom said, “there’ll be more riots. Getting those people moving further west has prevented any more problems since the big riot of two weeks back.”

“I agree with Tom,” John said. “Block the barrier, we’ll have a buildup of a couple of thousand again within days, even more desperate than the first wave, and it will be a bloody fight. Let them through, but drill our people on extra caution.”

“They’re wearing the hazmat suits already,” Charlie said.

“Yeah, and most likely taking them off with their bare hands, not washing down properly.”

He sighed.

“It’ll most likely jump no matter what we do. People are not just staying on the roads; they’re crawling up through the woods.”

“I’m getting reports of that,” Tom said. “Strangers breaking into houses, then running back up into the woods when someone shows up. Most likely outsiders.”

John looked at Kate, who said nothing. The word was ingrained now across the populace. Even those who had not been inside the town on the first day but came in before the barriers went up were now using it, almost as if to say, “I’m here now; I’m not one of thenar

“Nutrition-wise, thank God we’re well into June. Scurvy is not a concern; we got enough greens of one sort or another, though the soup made out of boiled grass and dandelions is a bit rough to swallow. The first vegetables are starting to come in as well.”

Throughout May Charlie, taking a page from the memories of some of the older folks, had called for a Victory Garden campaign. Every last seed in town had been snapped up and once beautiful lawns, yet another luxury of a pampered society, had been spaded over for lettuce, squash, beans, anything that could be eaten.

“Still, we are on the real edge now of running out.”

“Damn it, Doc,” Kate snapped. “We still got forty head of cattle here, a couple of hundred hogs, the horses, and Swannanoa maybe even more.”

“One cow a day for ten thousand?” Kellor asked. “At best two ounces of meat, less than a cheap hamburger at a fast-food joint without the bread. Ok, two cows a day and a hog. Five ounces of meat, barely enough, and the cows in both communities are gone in not much more than days, every last one. Then the horses, maybe another ten to twelve days. Then the rest of the hogs. Seventy days max and we’ve eaten our way through the lot. Then what?”

“And that’s at everyone getting about a thousand to twelve hundred calories a day. Then we are out of food, one hundred percent bankrupt.” He looked at Charlie.

“You got to plan until next spring, four times longer than what we’ve been talking about.”

Charlie looked at John, who reluctantly nodded in agreement.

“Don’t count on anything from the outside, perhaps never. To get to us from Charleston, they’ll first have to reestablish control in Columbia, then up to Greenville, Spartanburg. There are millions of people down there, just a couple of hundred thousand up here… and besides… they’ll think we’re ok up here in the mountains. Everyone always thinks that up the mountains there’ll be plenty of food.”

“What about trying to send Don Barber down there with his plane?” Tom asked.

There were several nods of agreement.

“At least it’d let them know we are up here.”

Charlie shook his head.

“That plane is valuable beyond measure for keeping an eye on things locally. Its range, though, fully gassed is less than two hundred miles.

“We could rig up some kind of strap-on tanks to take it one way into Charleston,” Tom said.

“Why?” Charlie asked.

“To get help,” Tom said. “For God’s sake, at least he could come back with some medicine. Doc Kellor could give him a list. Antibiotics, anesthesia…”

He hesitated and drew in his breath.

“Maybe even some insulin.”

John looked at him, not sure how to react, it was as if a taboo had been broken, to not speak of the threat to Jennifer. He could see the look in the police chief’s eyes, they were filled with compassion.

John couldn’t speak, a flash thought that maybe Tom was right. Surely whoever was down there would answer their appeal.

“I’m sorry, Tom,” it was Charlie, speaking softly. “And John, God in heaven knows I’m sorry for you, too, but I have to say no.”

John couldn’t speak, feeling that his worst nightmare had just been laid bare before this group, that a decision he now desired was obviously for himself, and the logical one that he knew Charlie would drive for he would be forced to agree with, even though he wanted to stand up and scream for them to agree with Tom or he’d quit being on the council.

He was embarrassed to realize he was actually trembling, eyes filling up with tears.