Грэм Мастертон - Famine

In Muskogee, Oklahoma, twenty men and one woman tried to break into a supermarket and steal boxes of canned meat, vegetables, and fruit. They were almost through loading when they were surprised by a National Guard patrol who machine-gunned all of them without warning. Their bodies were littered across the supermarket parking lot, and a reporter for the Tulsa Herald-Bulletin said. There was so much blood it was gurgling down the storm drains like crimson bathwater.’

One of the most vicious firelights of the night was in Los Angeles, where nearly 100 residents of the Palms district banded themselves together into an armed ‘food-looting force.’ They successfully raided two supermarkets with a convoy of seventy station wagons and trucks, and they were about to attack a large Quik-Serv store on Culver Boulevard when they were ambushed by 150 officers of the Los Angeles Police. Fifteen of the looters were shot dead, twenty-eight wounded, and nine policemen suffered serious bullet-wounds. At one time, the crackling of gunfire across the front of the supermarket was so loud that it could be heard in Westchester.

There were plenty of profiteers, of course. In San Francisco, where the Mayor had so far only imposed a midnight curfew, stores were brightly lit and wide-open, and selling cans of corned beef at six dollars and fifty cents a can. Canned vegetables were at a premium, with a single can of spinach selling at anything from four dollars upwards, and fresh vegetables, from the few farms which had been left unscathed by the blight, were Mike diamonds.’ One fresh lettuce, at a supermarket on Stockton Street, was selling for twelve dollars and fifty cents. A middle-aged man was shot dead by San Francisco policewomen when he tried to escape from a small neighbourhood store with three cans of lima beans in his pockets.

As Tuesday turned to Wednesday, the confusion and the terror grew. Only the President’s continual reassurance that ‘everything will work out’, along with the forced optimism of the television news programmes, kept the nation from total hysteria. Shortly after midnight, though, the President issued an Executive Order that all banks and savings banks would be closed until further notice, and that the public sale of silver and gold bullion was to be suspended. No financial assets could be sent out of the United States in any form whatsoever, except to meet previously-contracted debts. On the stock exchange in Tokyo, where the time was already 2.30 p.m. in the afternoon of Wednesday, the dollar collapsed against the Yen to 102.30, and it was only after ‘limitless guarantees’ from the Federal Reserve Bank and the International Monetary Fund that it steadied at ¥ 120.25.

A thoughtful and dignified editorial in the New York Times balanced the frightening story from Bill Brinsky on the front page by saying, ‘We are all about to live through this nation’s most testing days. Let us show the world at least what our courage is made of, what our resolve is made of, and how the great ideal of a free democratic society can meet up to the most tragic and disastrous circumstances that Nature or Man can devise.’

As those words were flying off the presses in a special late exclusive edition at two o’clock Wednesday, a friend of the Duncan family in Willingboro, New Jersey, was returning home from a late shift at the telephone company when he passed by the Duncans’ house and noticed that the Duncans’ kitchen light was still lit. At first he thought that maybe Emmet had sneaked downstairs to raid the icebox, especially the way that everybody was rationing out their food now, and he thought nothing of it. But two hours later, he looked out of his own bedroom window across the street and saw that the light was still burning.

In green pyjamas and a blue towelling bathrobe, he crossed the street, walked up between the laurel bushes by the Duncans’ path, and rang the doorbell. He rang five times, but there was no reply. After a few minutes, he went around the back, and tried to look into the kitchen, but the drapes were drawn across. Eventually, he shook the handle of the back door. To his surprise, it was open.

He saw them almost immediately. Emmet Duncan was lying curled up on the floor, in a sticky sea of vomit. His wife Dora had managed to drag herself through to the living-room, but had collapsed behind the sofa. Jenny and Kate were both sitting with their faces against the kitchen-table, as if they had fallen asleep. Only the whiteness of their faces and the diarrhoea caked on their legs showed that they had died.

The stench in the kitchen was hideous, and when Emmet’s friend took one step forward, a seething cloud of blowflies rose up from the bodies and battered around the kitchen like some kind of nightmarish hailstorm.

Up in the hills, in Topanga Canyon, Wednesday morning was as quiet and sunny as any other day. Only when Season stepped out through the french doors to join Carl and Vee on the pooldeck could she see the distant dark plumes of smoke which hung over Los Angeles like the black feathers of an old-fashioned funeral. And there was the smell, too – like burning cushions.

Carl was dressed in a white safari suit, and he was already halfway through a large tumbler of tequila, with salt around the rim. Vee was wearing a pink sun-dress and sandals, and she looked as if she hadn’t slept.

‘No calls?’ Season asked. ‘I didn’t think I was going to get to sleep at all, until you gave me those pills. They’re amazing.’

‘You feel better?’ asked Carl. Then he glanced at Vee, and said, ‘No, there were no calls. They mentioned Ed on the news once, but only to say that there wasn’t any sign of him yet. I should think the police have got their hands full without looking for people who can usually take care of themselves.’

‘Well, that’s Ed all right,’ said Season, rubbing her elbow as if she were cold, and giving Carl an uncomfortable smile.

‘Do you want breakfast?’ asked Vee. ‘I’ll have to cook it myself. Maria hasn’t arrived yet.’

‘Has she phoned you? I mean, she’s all right?’

Vee shook her head. ‘I don’t know. There was a whole lot of shooting last night, especially around Palms and Culver City. I just hope – well, I just hope I didn’t make a mistake, letting her go see her mother.’

‘Have you called the police?’ asked Season.

Carl took a mouthful of cold tequila, and grimaced. ‘The police lines are permanently busy. We’ve been taking turns dialling Maria’s mother’s house, too, but we can’t get any reply. I expect she’s okay. She’s a sensible girl. But, my God, I never thought I’d live to see the world like this. Just look at those damn fires.’

Season walked across to the breakfast table and sat down. There were two burned-down joints in the ashtray, and two empty plates with the greasy remains of bacon and scrambled egg on them. She looked up at Vee, and she had to half-close her eyes against the winking reflections from the pool.

‘Vee,’ she said, ‘I’m thinking of trying to make it back to South Burlington.’

Vee stared at her. ‘Are you crazy ? What do you want to go back to South Burlington for?’

‘For Ed. If he’s going to go anyplace at all, he’ll go to his farm.’

‘But why , Season? You came out here to get away from Ed. You came out here because you couldn’t take Kansas any longer. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how bad you were just a week ago? You were in pieces ! And now you want to go back?’

Carl put in, ‘Apart from that. Season, think of the danger. There’s no way you could possibly take Sally along with you, for starters. And you couldn’t fly. They said on the news this morning that all flights out of LAX and Burbank have been cancelled, at least until the weekend, and private flying has been restricted to essential flights only. Come on, Season – the freeways are jammed solid by day, there are curfews in almost every single state at night – you’d never find anyplace to stay, or anyplace to hide.’