James Funfer's Blog, page 4

Doom’s Daughter, Chapter 9

We come pouring out of the back of the overturned APC like bats out of hell.

The highway is barren. There are no League shooters waiting to gun us down from the ditches. Everyone seems to be on high alert, but as the dust settles, I lower my guard slightly.

“Huh,” I mutter.

Father inspects the newly blasted hole in the road. “Must have been cleverly concealed,” he says. “Could have been here for years for all we know.” Doctor Sandy, meanwhile, checks in on Gail, our driver.

We tally up the injuries. Plenty of bruises. June’s mouth is bloody from a chipped tooth and Rusty’s wrist might be broken. Connor’s ankle is still swollen. Gail has a pretty nasty concussion. Still, there are no fatalities or life-threatening wounds so I consider it a pretty lucky brush with death.

“We’re sitting ducks out here,” Rusty says.

“Plus we need new wheels,” Cale adds as we all make our way to the ditch on the other side of the highway barrier. “That mine totalled the carrier.”

“If we can find wheels,” June says as she spits out a gob of blood. “We might have to head back the long way.”

“Screw that,” Jennifer says, “I want to finish this first. I’m sick of this damn war.”

“So we’re going in at half strength?” Cale asks.

“I’m not forcing anyone to come with us,” Father says, “but we need Charlotte back.”

Sandy stares at him as she fashions a splint for Rusty. “You’re willing to risk your life, not to mention your daughter’s life, for information?”

Father glances at me, then back to Sandy. “Knowledge is power, as the old adage goes, and I don’t make Regan’s choices for her. This isn’t about the database…or rather, it’s about something specific on the drive.”

“Just tell them, Mr. Obscure,” I suggest.

The forever-overcast winter sky finally opens up and starts to rain. It seems to make the Kawitzen pretty glum, but I come from a desert so I just smile and close my eyes, face pointing to the sky. Even Father’s long-suffering sigh can’t break my feeling of contentment.

When you walk on a figurative razor’s edge every day, you learn to savour those moments of peace. I open my eyes and notice that Connor is watching me.

What? I ask silently. He looks away suddenly.

“It’s a cure,” Father says. There is a collective intake of breath, and the inevitable moment of silence as the information sinks in.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Sandy says.

“It’s no joke,” I add.

“No,” Father agrees, “but it’s incomplete. We have reason to believe that innumerable research firms and universities were working on an emergency cure when The Doom came, but so far we haven’t come up with anything conclusive.”

I notice a subtle glance between Sandy and Cale.

“Try and keep that bandage dry, Rusty,” Sandy says before turning to Father. “You don’t have a backup somewhere?”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“Then what’s the issue?” Cale demands.

“Disregarding the fact that your tribe refuses to acknowledge the Doom as man-made…”

“Person­-made,” Jennifer corrects.

“People-made, technically,” Father continues. “The good doctor might be the only one here who understands the implications of a crazed and violent cult being able to synthesize and modify a virus that makes Ebola look like mild bronchitis. Please tell me the League has no microbiologist and no access to a laboratory.”

The patter of rain punctuates the silence between nervous glances.

“I don’t know about the first part,” Sandy says, “but they certainly have a lab. They’ve made their home in what used to be a university campus.”

“And right across the road was CFB Nanaimo,” Rusty adds.

“CFB?” I ask.

“Canadian Forces Base,” Cale says.

“Fuck,” Father exclaims. “Explains why they’re so well-armed. Well nobody is obligated to come with us, but the future of your society could be decided here and now. We may be out…personed and outgunned, but I can’t back down, and I’m certain there are enough of you here who acknowledge that this ideological battle between your two factions has long-reaching implications…”

“Way to rally the troops, Dad,” I say. “I think what he’s trying to say is: we agree that the League are a bunch of assholes. Join us in death or victory.”

“I have to look after the wounded,” Sandy says, gesturing to Rusty, Gail and Connor, “and find a new vehicle. But the rest of you are free to…”

“I’m going,” Connor insists. “I want to see this through.”

“Too many lives have been lost,” Cale agrees, nodding. “Not to mention the innocents the League still holds hostage. And their idiot converts like Mason. This has to end.”

“Well then,” Father says, rubbing his hands together, “let’s have a briefing, shall we? What exactly are we up against, and what is our preferred plan of attack?”

“Dad. It’s off-putting how excited you get about violence.”

“I get excited about planning,” he insists.

Doom’s Daughter, Chapter 8

“Is one van really worth your life?” Connor asks as he rubs at his swollen ankle. The rattle of tires over the run-down highway almost drowns out his voice. There are eight of us crammed into the back of the APC: me, Father, Connor and Cale (I found out earlier that they’re father and son), June and Jennifer (who both look like badass action movie heroines), Doctor Sandy (real name Sandeep) and this old First Nations guy who goes by Rusty.

“Life doesn’t have a fixed value,” Father says, replying for me. Everyone in the back of the APC looks over at him, startled. They’d all assumed he was asleep. “Life as an idea should be held as sacred, yes. It must go on. But a life, a singular life, is just a mass of cells, a complex organism with temporary awareness. Its occupation of time and space is not permanent. Why would I weep over one death, when I have not shed a tear for the billions who have gone before me?”

Everyone stares at him.

“Is he always this maudlin?” Cale whispers to me. I nod.

“We’re taught that all life is sacred,” Connor replies, folding his arms.

“If you truly believed that, the League would have slaughtered you,” Father says. “You placed a higher value on your own life. That’s instinct.”

“I’m asking why this vehicle is so important that you would risk yourself,” Connor explains. “I don’t care that you’re an atheist with absolutely no morality.”

Father laughs. “That’s only half-true. You perceive me as immoral because you struggle to understand me. Just understand this: if we hold humanity as truly sacred, if we carry on like we did before the Doom, placing ourselves on a pedestal above every other living thing, assuming that we have something special that makes us different: consciousness, a soul, whatever you want to call it…then we are destined to repeat our mistakes.”

“You believe the same as us, sounds like,” Rusty says, scratching at his grey stubble.

“No, you misunderstand me. Humans believe they are special just because they have consciousness, empathy and reason. Chimps are self-aware. Dolphins have empathy. Crows can reason. You see yourselves as shepherds of the natural world, but it’s a hierarchy that manages itself. The rabbit doesn’t concern itself with a population explosion. That’s the predator’s job, but if the carnivore was removed, the rabbit would go on making babies until every last piece of lettuce in Farmer Brown’s garden was gone and they all starved.”

Connor stares at me. Who’s Farmer Brown? He mouths. I shrug and try to indicate that I’ll explain later.

“The rabbit doesn’t have a sense of responsibility,” Sandy counters.

“And what does ours do for us?” Father asks. “Tell me this: if the world was overpopulated and on the brink of collapse from, say…massive famine, could you pull the trigger? Kill off enough people so that the rest could survive? We know what’s best for the world, but we still behave according to our instincts. The man cheats on his wife with a beautiful woman because his hormones urge him to do so, increasing the chances of producing a successful offspring. The businessman makes a decision that will render thousands destitute, because the corporation must survive. The politician is responsible for a higher-than-average fatality rate in her country because the gun lobbyists line her pockets. I have a sense of responsibility, but we are just a collection of egos. We can’t control the herd…no matter how we’ve tried throughout history.”

There’s a morose silence following Father’s words. He usually has that effect on people. I stare out the window slats at the world beyond, wondering if the Doom was as much a blessing for the planet as it had been a bane for humanity. Dilapidated highway-side buildings pass us by: a gas station long-looted, blackberry bramble and Scotch broom encroaching like a shroud of vines. A trio of deer, grazing placidly in a field, flee at the sight of a wild dog pack. Long-dead traffic lights remind me of the world that was: a world of rules and money and progress.

“It may have taken the Doom,” Rusty says, his voice as raw as his namesake, “but I believe we finally did learn our lesson, and can return to the way things were: sharing instead of taking.”

Father has a dour smirk on his face. “Have any of you ever heard the story of Easter Island?”

“No,” Cale says. We hit a pothole in the road and everyone bounces in their seats.

“Well, remind me to lend you a certain book if we get Charlotte back. Easter Island was a microcosm of what happened with all of human civilization. I might know that my actions are killing the planet, but if they allow me to live a comfortable life, I’m going to keep on doing them. When even a fraction of humanity behaves this way…”

“We don’t anymore,” Connor insists. “Some of us have a little thing called optimism.”

“Well then you’d better hope your future generations understand what the world was like before the Doom,” Father says ominously. “Or one day it will happen all over again.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” Cale says as he fiddles with a radio. I think he’s looking for frequencies the League uses. “I lived through the Doom, same as you, and I know where we were headed before it happened. Maybe I just have a little more faith in humanity than you do. Optimism, right Connor?”

“And where does the League fit into your new world order?” Father asks.

“Their worldview is violent and narrow,” Sandy replies. “It’s us or them at this point…we tried for years to broker a truce. It’s not like we don’t both have room to grow nowadays.”

Father begins inspecting his gear. It’s standard procedure for him before anything involving stealth or violence. He calls it ‘his OCD coming out’.

“Alright,” he says, clearing his throat, “Regan and I need a full brief. What we’re up against and the best means of approach.”

“You owe us an answer first,” Connor insists. “What’s so important about your RV?”

To Connor’s credit, he doesn’t wilt under Father’s stare the way most people do. “What?” Father says. “Putting eight of your adversaries into the ground isn’t proof enough of our dedication to your cause?”

“That was self-defence,” Cale says.

“It’s more than that,” I add, breaking my silence. “This is about your ideology surviving. I might not agree with your…religious take on the Doom, or your leader’s weird idea that Dad is somehow sent by your goddess to help you, but sustainability I can get behind. For us, this isn’t about Charlotte, it’s about…”

“Regan,” Father warns.

“No, Dad, you shush. They’re putting faith in us and us in them and this is a really dangerous thing we’re about to do and we might all die. So there needs to be trust. We need to know exactly what the League is all about, not to mention numbers, armament, tactics, blah blah and so on, and they need to know what we’re even doing here on this island in the first place.”

Father sighs. “There’s no point getting anyone’s hopes up.”

“This isn’t about that,” I reply. “This is about transparency. So why don’t I tell you our mission here…”

“Twofold mission,” Father amends.

“Threefold mission,” I say, “and then we can discuss a plan to get in and out with Charlotte and any information they may have stolen.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Cale agrees.

“First and foremost,” I say, “we are scavengers. We collect anything pre-Doom that is worth preserving…everything from Styx albums to repair manuals. Charlotte has a huge database of scanned and uploaded information. Second, whether Dad likes it or not, we trade, in knowledge and materials.”

“We try to improve the fledgling communities we encounter,” Father adds.

“That’s what I just said,” I say. “So there you have it. That’s our mission. Scavenge and trade. Occasionally we build bridges between remote groups. Figurative bridges.”

“Is that the third…fold…?” Connor asks. “Building bridges?”

I glance at Father. He shrugs. “You wanted to tell them.”

“I don’t see why it has to be such a big secret,” I reply. “It benefits everyone.”

Father sighs. “Long story short, we’re looking for a…”

There is a boom and suddenly everyone is bouncing and the tires are screeching as the APC tips over. My world looks like a spinning camera as limbs collide with bodies, walls, seats. The vehicle comes to rest upside down and I know instinctively that it wasn’t a pothole this time.

Land mine, I think. With no time to check for bruises, I flick off the safety on my shotgun and prepare myself for ambush #2.

Or wait, is that #3 since landing on this stupid island? I ask myself.

Doom’s Daughter, Chapter 7

Father cracks the safe with a deft hand and we bust out the ‘big guns’: a modified, scoped Belgian FN for him and an M4 for me. Neither of us are a fan of ‘spray ‘n pray’ methods, going for precision instead of area covered.

I drape a couple belts of NATO rounds over my shoulder. “Sure miss the tank right about now. We taking Charlotte out to play?”

Father purses his lips. “Hmm. No. I’ve seen their fortifications. Towers are better for our purposes. Sounds like they’re coming from the forest to the north and the road leading east. You take one of the east-facing towers. Let’s go!”

“You’re the one yammering,” I joke.

We dash off in different directions. The night is a concerto of gunfire and screams.

Humanity’s population dwindles¸ I think, and people still feel the need to kill each other over matters of belief or ideology. I’ve never liked killing, but I picture the Kawitzen with their wide-eyed faces and neo-environmentalism and I know which way my barrel will face.

I reach the stockade perimeter to find it intact. The tower is a wooden structure about twenty feet high, built of local cedar. Men and women line the stockade wall, firing, reloading. I can hear someone on the tower, swearing like a gangsta rapper. I climb up to give him a hand.

He’s got a pretty sweet set of night vision goggles, as well as a Winchester with a scope. I realize that I forgot to snatch my low-light gear from Charlotte.

“What’s the sitch?” I ask as I start setting up a spot on the small platform.

“Hey, you’re the new girl,” he remarks.

“Hey, you’re Mr. Goggles,” I throw back. “Small talk later. What are we dealing with?”

He ducks down behind the tower wall and I hear a trio of bullets ricochet off the wood.

“Based on radio chatter? Thirty to forty of ‘em. The League comes well-armed. Determined to indoctrinate us all one of these days.”

“They seem like they’re more interested in killing you.”

“Only the ones who fight back.” He goes to one knee to return fire. I let his volley act as covering fire and peer up over the tower ledge. Dark tree line. They’re firing from dense cover on either side of the road. I’m betting they’re not complete idiots; this is likely a diversion tactic while they blow off the stockade gate.

“Trogdor, this is Phoenix,” my belt radio squawks, “give me the Picasso and Bach, over.”

“Picasso is blue,” I reply, “Bach is nocturne. Charlie Sheen carries an echo, over.”

There’s a moment of radio silence. When it comes back to life I hear intense gunfire from Father’s end.

“Eagle on Sheen? Over.”

“Megatron,” I say. “Loading, Phoenix. Over.” I glance at Goggles. “Can I borrow those?”

“What, why?” he asks. “I’m the best shot in the village.”

“Not anymore you’re not,” I say. It sounds like bragging but I’m referring to Father. “I just need to get a look at their heavy hardware before they blow your barricade sky-high.”

His eyes widen. “Do you think they brought their big guns?” Another rat-a-tat of bullets hits the wall.

“I think someone, A.K.A. Mason-Jar, A.K.A. Turncoat McGee tipped them off that there’d be something here worth the gambit. Give me a few shots of covering fire and I’ll try and take a peek through the woods.”

He hands over the goggles almost reluctantly, but he seems to trust in what I’m doing. Bonus, I discover as he takes them off, he’s a cute young guy with dark hair and eyes. Then I’m reminded of Mason and remember that cute can be deceiving, even if they grow them good-looking on this island.

“Careful with those,” he says, “they were really hard to find.”

“What’s your name?” I ask as I adjust the strap.

“Connor.”

“Well Connor, I’m Regan. And in case you can’t tell, this ain’t my first rodeo.”

“What’s a rodeo?” he asks, but sheltered hippie questions are the least of my worries, so I just motion for him to give me the covering fire. He kneels up and sends a nice spray through the trees. I pop up to look. Sure enough, there’s a good dozen to fifteen bodies out there, bright green in the brush. I glance through the cedars, looking for…

I duck back just in time to avoid both the goggles and my brain exploding. Our assailants seem to be concentrating fire in our direction.

“Whoa, Nelly,” I exclaim, grabbing my walkie-talkie. “Trogdor to Phoenix, come in Phoenix, over.”

“Phoenix here,” Father grunts.

“Charlie Sheen going wild with two hot ladies, over.”

“Fuck,” he says, breaking code. “Ok. Can send over own lady. Maintain, see if you can turn down the music, over.”

“Optimus, Phoenix. Over and out.”

Connor is staring at me. “Ok…what just happened?”

I toss him back his headgear. “Ok, Goggles, listen up: they have an armoured car coming in hot with at least two people carrying explosives. If they get close enough we could snipe them but in the meantime I think we’re getting your rocket launcher friend, so we have to try and clear out those woods of shooters or he’s dead meat, capisce?”

He blinks twice, then puts his goggles back on. “Ok, you got it.” He kneels up again and takes a couple pot-shots. I hear a guy gurgle and go down in the darkness. “It’s like you were trained for this kind of thing.”

I kneel as well, remembering my mental picture of the League shooters I saw from the goggles, and fire into the night. There is no scream but I hear a body drop.

“Yeah, survival is kind of our gig,” I reply. “That and salvage.”

We settle into a rhythm: cover fire, shoot, duck. Switch roles, cover fire, shoot, duck. I try to break up the pattern to keep them guessing, thankful that none of them seem to be sharp-shooters. Still, Connor gets clipped on the shoulder, drawing a bit of blood, and a bullet actually ricochets off my gun, reminding me once again how many scrapes I’ve had with death.

“What do you salvage?” Connor asks after taking a shot.

“Everything.” I rise and fire, then duck again. “Knowledge, mostly. But tonight we focus on survival, k?”

He glances over the wall, then ducks back down. “Shit, that big car is going to ram the gate.”

“Oh, fuck,” I say, grabbing the radio. “Sheen knocking on the door…where’s that lady? Over.”

“Carrying echo!” Shouts Father. “Keep turning down the music! Over!”

Connor stands with me and we empty our clips into the bushes as an old armoured car comes barrelling out of the forest road. I get this sinking feeling in my chest when I realize the cab is empty.

“Jump,” I say, grabbing Connor’s hand. We vault south over the tower wall, our hands breaking apart as we fall. Just as I’m rolling with the impact, I feel the heat and explosive wave of force as the loaded car detonates. It blows me flat against the ground, scraping my face. Ashes and splinters are flying everywhere.

“Holy Jesus fuck,” I say, hastily pulling bullets out of the ammo belt and into my empty gun cartridge. I glance at Connor. He seems ok but it looks like he landed funny on his ankle. I drag him to the tree-line for cover so we can prepare our next move. I whisper into the radio:

“Trogdor to Phoenix: answer…” I stop, in shock, as I watch Charlotte peel down the road through the fire, Mason at the wheel.

“No…” I whisper.

“Phoenix here, come in Trogdor, over,” the radio says.

“Was that your…?” Connor wonders. “Ah, my fucking ankle.”

I explode. “You fucking jarhead asshole worm-face limp-dick turncoat puke-bucket son of a giant piece of shit!” I bunker down in the ditch, getting ready for the League to come at us in the dark thanks to my outburst.

“Come in Trogdor, over.”

“Charlotte’s freewheelin’,” I say into the radio. “Scene is crowded.” It’s the code for radio silence so I don’t give away my position.

“What now?” Connor whispers.

“Now it’s fucking war,” I whisper back. “Any questions?”

Connor leans around his tree to peg the first oncoming League assailant in the head. “Just one…what’s a trogdor?”

 

Doom’s Daughter, Chapter 6

“Many years before any of you were born, the world was filled with humans.”

The bonfire crackles, and in its glow I survey the faces of the bright-eyed Kawitzen children, listening intently to Amelia’s story. Although the winter is mild on the west coast of North America’s 49th parallel, it still gets damp and chilly at night.

“They spread out from their home in Africa and covered the planet, until there was no place you could not find them, not even the frozen lands of the north and south poles.”

The ratio of kids to adults is off-kilter in the Kawitzen tribe, just like most places we visit. Echoes of The Doom are still felt here. Survivors looking to be fruitful and multiply still have to come to grips with the horrors of their offspring not always inheriting their immunity.

“But these children of the Goddess did not simply spread and multiply. For in their wake they brought with them what they called civilization. And what is civilization?”

As a bunch of chubby little hands shoot into the air I roll my eyes and look at Father. If I wanted something this heavy-handed I’d read Ayn Rand, my eyes say to him. He’s busy reading something by firelight and doesn’t notice me, but I’m sure he’d have a few choice things to say about The Doom if he wasn’t so intent on being polite to his new girlfriend.

“Civilization is when you think that some people should get more than other people,” a girl says. We’ve found the pedant in the group, folks. “Civilization uses the gifts of the Goddess without giving back to the planet. Civilization made the Goddess send the Doom so that the planet would stop dying.”

Why did I sit here to get an agenda-driven history lesson instead of going off with the other teenagers? I ask myself. You wanted to meet new people, Regan. Congrats. Eight brainwashed thumb-suckers and the Queen of the Hippies.

I remind myself that I’m trying to avoid Mason. I’m still shocked they let him back in the tribe despite his constant need to betray everything – up to and including his own dignity – but then again, the Kawitzen seem to have forgiveness down to Jesus-like proportions. Most post-Doom village cults are a danger to others; this one seems to be more of a danger to itself.

“That’s right Harmony,” Amelia says, bringing my focus back to the present. What’s going on? I ask myself. Oh, yeah. Back-patting for taking the blue pill. I accidentally laugh out loud at my secret Matrix joke that nobody would get.

“Is something funny, Regan?” Amelia asks. It’s creepy because she doesn’t sound offended.

“It’s nothing,” I mutter. “Please carry on.”

“No, please,” she insists. “You and your father are well-travelled. Do you have further insight into the fall of civilization?”

I sigh, looking to Father pleadingly for support but he’s still reading his book. A lifetime of knowing his habits tells me that he’s actually listening, but he’s not going to back me up on this one.

I sigh. “You were born well before The Doom, right Amelia?”

She smiles. “Guilty; I’m no spring chicken.”

“So you remember that The Doom was a human-made virus, right? Not some book of revelations or Gaia hypothesis plague?”

Amelia regards me calmly but there is something new in her eyes. That’s right, I think. This road scholar knows better than your spoon-fed, homespun religion, and you have to respect that, don’t you?

            “According to the mainstream media at the time, yes. Sources proven to be less than credible.”

The kids’ faces turn from left to right and back again like they’re watching tennis.

“Um, and according to him,” I say, pointing at Father. “Your saviour-guy. And more than a few well-documented sources. And…”

Father slams his book shut so loudly that it is heard over the crackle of flames, over our argument. He stands and gives me the you-know-what-you-did stare, except I have no idea what I did.

“Can I talk to you for a moment, daughter of mine?”

I stare at him from across the flames. “Sure.” I grit my teeth. “Dad. Of mine.”

As we leave the area around the bonfire I catch Amelia’s eye. She’s got this look like: ‘how would you know about The Doom, Regan? You weren’t born yet’. I just want to punch her, but I don’t generally throw fists around when I’m a guest.

I have punched one of Father’s girlfriends before, though.

Father stops walking when we’re hidden deep in one of the rows of the Kawitzen’s winter garden.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asks.

“Right now? Being admonished for inscrutable reasons, apparently.”

“You’re not going to change their minds, Regan.”

I fold my arms, staring up at the cloudy night sky so I don’t have to look at his stupid accusatory face.

“I cannot believe you’re not backing me up on this, Dad. I mean…goddess plagues? Civilization pared down to a concept that a five-year-old thinks it can understand? Hey, we’ve seen our fair share of cults, but…”

“But nothing,” he counters. “They’re peaceful. You wanted to trade with them and meet new people. Well, here we are. Everyone gets to decide how they rebuild the world. This is how the Kawitzen are doing it, and I’d say they’re not doing too bad of a job.”

“Doesn’t the truth matter?” I raise my voice with the hope that someone will eavesdrop and learn something. “Or are you too busy trying to impress your new girlfriend?”

“She’s not,” he says, laughing, “my girlfriend. Civilization was a monster, Regan. You might think you understand what it was, and perhaps you do better than most who remember it, but really it was a juggernaut of destruction. It was the selfish soul of humanity, the manifestation of our biological instincts dressed up in the trappings of fairness and progress. It was leading us toward ecological disaster. It was an arbitrary system of numbers that gave incredible power to a select few and essentially enslaved the rest. It was the pursuit of knowledge above all else which brought us to The Doom.”

“But…”

“Don’t interrupt. Their goddess is a metaphor, yes, but these people are trying to teach their children not to make the same mistakes we did, so I’d say it’s a step in the right direction. Because the hard truth of the matter, Regan, is that if The Doom hadn’t come to the world, we would have destroyed it anyway, with nuclear warheads or the greenhouse effect or oceans full of garbage.”

“Okay,” I say. “Thanks for not being an asshole about it, Dad. So you’re saying The Doom was a good thing, now?”

He gets that quiet, contemplative face like he does sometimes when The Doom gets brought up. Like he’s remembering horrific things that, to this day, he won’t tell me about. Bodies piled in the streets and burning cities and wanton violence kind of stuff.

Then we hear the sound of a fire hall siren.

“It’s the League!” someone shouts in the distance. “Get to the towers!”

“Really starting to hate this League,” I mutter to Father as we race back to the RV for some firepower.

“Tell me about it,” he says.

Doom’s Daughter, Chapter 5

The man in the woollen cap raises his rifle. Knowing Father, he’s got the pistol in his duster pocket pointed at the guy. Mason is on the floor, still pleading silently with his stupid, snotty face. I’ve got my shotgun in my hands, hidden just out of sight. It’s not so much a Mexican standoff as a two-on-one with an extra army outside for the outnumbered guy.

“Ok, what’s going on here?” Wool-cap demands.

“Just calm down, my friend,” Father says in his best negotiation voice. It’s the voice that always gets the best bartering price on goods. It’s the voice that talked Reverend Jones down from burning me at the stake. It’s the voice that…admittedly, didn’t work so well against the angry bikers in Sin City, but that’s a different story. I still can’t believe Father brought me along that time.

“I’m calm, I’m calm,” Woolly says. “Just wondering why you have a guy tied…oh, it’s Mason.” He lowers his rifle. “Thought some off-islanders’d be an easy mark, eh, kid?”

“Cale, they’re crazy, ya gotta help me,” Mason bleats. I watch with satisfaction as Cale rolls his eyes.

“Don’t listen to a word he says,” Cale advises. “He’s slippery as soap, can’t be trusted. Does dirty work for the League, besides.”

“Yeah, about that,” Father says, scratching the back of his neck as he lets go of the gun in his pocket, “I’d like to know more about the League. And your tribe.”

Cale nods, smiling broadly as he takes a gander about the RV. “Well I’d say you’ve got extra stuff to trade. Tell you what: why don’t you follow us back to the village? I can introduce you to our priestess, er, leader, and we can trade goods and information.”

“It’s a trap!” Mason shouts.

“Dad, can we gag him?” I ask. Guy changes tunes more than I do when I’m checking out a scavenged mix-CD.

***

We turn around, heading north, following Cale and his crew up the highway. A part of me hopes we’ll run into Mason’s ‘friends’ along the way, but the journey proves to be violence-free, with the exception of Mason straining his wrists to bleeding against his bonds and then whining about it.

Father still doesn’t let me gag him, even after I crank Nightwish to drown out his blubbering. No, make that boogering. I’m sure Father wants to see what else Jar-of-snot will reveal about the League, but I just can’t take it anymore. Epic Norwegian Metal is the only possible reprieve.

The caravan leads us into a literal village. It’s not one of those sad ragged-tents-and-goats outfits, either. It’s a cleaned-up pre-Doom suburbia with a great big farm in the middle which I’m betting was once a soccer field. Mason starts freaking out again, screaming that they’re going to ‘tie him to the maypole and leave him for the crows’ and that if we get out of the RV we’re probably dead, too, but I just ignore him. I know an ambush when I see one.

The roadblock was a possible ambush. This place is kids running around with wooden swords and aluminum foil armour, playing some make-believe game about the good ol’ days when the scariest disease out there was the bubonic plague. This village is farmers in hand-sewn work-clothes tending to vegetable crops, standing up to wave at their returning scouts, or army or whatever they happen to be.

This place is, I’m betting Father will mutter any minute, ‘Hippie-ville’.

“Oh, it’s a hippie commune,” Father exclaims from the passenger seat, leaving out the ‘ville’. “They’d be more likely to try and put you on a vegan diet to suppress that aggression, Mason, rather than kill you.”

“Uh-huh,” he sniffles, “and their guns are just for show.”

I’m betting the guns are for protection, but I decide to wait and see what the locals say about Mason and the League. Appearances can be deceiving, especially when it comes to local leadership.

Cale and company park outside of what looks like an English-style pub. Minus our truck, we only take up five parking spots. Everybody clambers out and Father hands Mason over to the Kawitzen, despite his screaming protestations.

“Mason’s back!” one of the tin-foil knights exclaims, and suddenly they’ve surrounded him, chanting and taunting him with their weapons. Surprisingly, the children seem to calm him down. I hang back and watch as Father chats with Cale.

“We captured you again,” the tallest boy exclaims, prodding Mason with his sword-stick.

“The only thing you’ve ever caught was the permanent stink of farts,” Mason retorts. The children giggle. “Those strangers captured me,” he says, gesturing his head in my direction, “and you’d better keep away from them. They’re from the mainland and don’t believe in the Goddess. They’d probably sell you all into slavery if they got the chance.”

I raise an eyebrow as the children scream and scatter. The tall boy with the sword glares at me like he’s about to have a moment of bravery, until I wink at him. He and his courage flee the parking lot.

“Well you got one thing right,” I tell Liar-Pants Mason. “I don’t believe in your stupid goddess who definitely doesn’t exist and is just a figment of a small-village post-Doom imagination, probably meant to help explain…”

“Regan,” Father says. “Let’s go.” He gestures for me to follow him and Cale. Mason is led away by another member of the scouts, to some unknown fate. Based on the fact that he’s no longer stuck on ‘I’m gonna die’ like a warped vinyl record, I assume that he’s pretty well-known to the Kawitzen, and that they don’t generally execute people.

He seems like one of them, I think. I want to ask Cale about it, but he and Father are talking in hushed voices. We head into the vegetable field.

“Where are we going?” I ask them. “Or is that information as secret as the rest of your conversation?”

“We’re just talking shop, Regan,” Father explains. “Not everyone around here appears interested in the finer aspects of gun collection and maintenance.”

“No, they appear interested in vegetable collection and maintenance,” I reply. “Hey, hat-guy. Did you know that you’re named after a vegetable?”

“My name is with a ‘c’,” he says, deadpan. “And it’s called a toque.”

I blink. “You just made that word up.”

We reach what I can only describe as a palatial yurt in the middle of the field. I’d been hoping to see Wizard of Oz-style guards chanting Oh-ee-oh or maybe two sun-bronzed dudes fanning some lady on a lounge chair out front, but no such luck. Clearly the Kawitzen are comfortable breaking all the rules of post-apocalyptic tribal hierarchies.

“Amelia?” Cale calls into the dark recesses of the tent. “Are you in?”

The woman who emerges can only be described as ‘granola-chic’. Her wavy silver hair is almost a mantle. She’s wearing a wrap-style skirt and hemp tunic, very down-to-earth, but her fingers are covered in more gold and silver than I’ve seen outside of a cracked safe. She’s got this big banged-copper medallion around her neck with an ensconced amethyst, in the shape of a crescent moon. She glances at Cale for just a second before fixing her eyes on Father.

“By the Goddess,” she says, stepping forward and cupping Father’s face with both hands. “Our saviour has come.”

“I think she likes you Dad,” I point out.

Doom’s Daughter Chapter 4

My urge to punch Mason fades, along with my urge to do anything else to him: kiss, admonish for breaking my CDs, teach to be less shitty. Instead I just feel a mild mixture of pity, revulsion and curiosity. How could someone so initially attractive be such a wussy jerk? I decide that there is only one way to find out.

“So what made you decide to be such a wussy jerk?” I ask as I turn another corner on the cracked and debris-filled road. Mason shifts away from me, trying to hide his look of shame.

“Keep your eyes on the treeline,” Father tells me. “For more of those League bastards.”

“Roger,” I reply as Father clambers into the back with Mason’s rifle. He looks like he’s going to tweak it some more. “Hey. Masonjar. I’m talking to you.”

“I told you I was going to die and you don’t even care.”

“Wow, I asked you a question and you didn’t even answer. You are currently alive. So, following normal logic, you don’t know for certain how and when you are going to die. And why should I care? You tried to trick, ambush and kill both of us. It doesn’t exactly create a feeling of loyalty.”

Past the abandoned rural houses, the road returns to the highway. I take it south, back to the big city at the bottom end of the island. We pass dilapidated gas stations and rusted-out cars as we go.

“I wasn’t going to kill you,” Mason insists.

“Oh, so you were bluffing? You were going to let your friends do the dirty work? Wow, you’re just making yourself sound better and better, Jar-head.”

“You think I had a choice?” Mason’s face explodes into a fresh display of mucous, spittle and tears. Oh, very sexy, I think. “I try to leave, they’ll kill me. I try to warn anyone, they’ll kill me. I was going to try and tell you, but then you…”

“Let me stop you right there,” I interrupt him. “First of all: if you want somebody’s help, pointing a gun at them? Probably the worst way to ask for it. Sounds like your employers, uh…sounds like you need to change your…hmm…” I stumble over my words. “Hey, Dad? Help me out here. I’m not good with job-related idioms.”

“Sounds like you should take out employment insurance,” Father quips from the back.

“Ha!” I say. Mason isn’t laughing, however. He’s just leaking out every hole in his face some more. “…Dad, what do you mean by insurance?” Sometimes his pre-Doom terms go over my head. “Never mind,” I say, turning my attention back to Mason. “You always have a choice. Unless you want to talk determinism.” Mason looks at me like I’m speaking an alien language. “Determinism. Cause and effect. The belief that…” I suddenly remember that not everybody stockpiles books and data, and the literacy rate has dropped pretty sharply in some areas, post-Doom.

As I glance back at the road, the rest of the sentence dies in my throat.

“Dad?” I call out. “Code thirty-three. Point two.”

“Roadblock? Are they armed?”

Even at a hundred metres, I can clearly see the firearms they carry. A dozen women and men span the highway ahead, carrying automatic rifles. One of them appears to be brandishing grenades. Behind them is a row of vehicles, blocking the way south.

“Oh yeah.”

“Shit,” Father says. “Turn around.”

“Fuck, I’m gonna die,” Mason exclaims as I slam on the breaks and start spinning the wheel. I haven’t tipped Charlotte over yet, but it feels like I’m going to, every time I pull this manoeuvre.

“There’s no way your so called ‘buddies’ know you’ve semi-not-really-betrayed them already,” I say through gritted teeth as the brakes screech. “Are you telling me your League made a roadblock?”

“No,” Mason wails. “It’s the Kawitzen.” He can’t see through the window from where he’s tied up, but he sounds pretty certain.

“Oh,” I mutter. Charlotte careens on two tires, just for a moment, before plopping back down. Anything not lashed down clatters around on the floor of the RV. “They won’t shoot at us, will they?” I ask Mason.

“They will if they think you’re League,” Mason insists.

“Dad, we’re going to negotiate,” I call out.

“What? No we’re not. ”

“Yes we are.” I start turning Charlotte around again.

“No we’re not!” Mason shouts.

“Too late,” I say, flipping the loudspeaker switch before Father can stop me.

“PEOPLE OF THE KAWITZEN TRIBE,” I say, loving the way my voice booms. “WE COME TO YOU IN PEACE. WE ARE NOT FROM THE LEAGUE.” I hit the brakes and come to a stop some thirty metres away from the road block, hoping that the tribe won’t open fire.

Their shocked expressions are so great that I find myself wishing I’d brought my camera up to the cockpit. Dad is beside me suddenly, staring out the window at the assembled row of armed people in their piecemeal clothing.

“I said no,” he mutters. I can tell by his expression that the admonishment is mostly an afterthought; Father is already calculating new plans in his head based on possible outcomes of my rash decision. Admittedly, it’s not the first time something like this has happened. I think he’s getting used to it.

A man with a woollen cap and salt-and-pepper beard approaches Charlotte while the other tribals keep their weapons at the ready. The guy with the grenades looks anxiously from the explosive in his hand to our vehicle, perhaps realizing that he’s a bit too close for his weapon to be a good idea. Dejected, he lowers his arm and his expression goes from zealous to impatiently wary.

The man reaches Charlotte and – I can hardly believe it – actually knocks on the door. I can’t help but laugh. Father doesn’t think it’s so funny. He signals for me to remain at the wheel and he goes to meet the man at the side door.

“Alright, buddy, no funny business!” I hear the man say through the door. I look at Mason.

“What does ‘buddy’ mean?”

“Like a friend.”

“But they don’t even know each other!”

I’ve missed a part of the conversation, but I hear the door of the RV open and the man step inside.

“Welcome to my home,” Father says. “We’ve got a…”

“Help!” Mason cries, leaning over from his tied-up spot by the chair. He gives the man with the cap his best pleading expression. “These people are going to kill me!”

Doom’s Daughter, Chapter 3

“…guy?” I venture. The door has been left wide open, but our guest is nowhere to be seen. Thankfully, he didn’t steal any of my CDs. “What a jerk,” I mutter. “I told you we’d scare him off, dad.”

“Did he steal something?” Dad asks anxiously as he rapidly takes a visual stock of the RV’s contents.

“I don’t…” I am interrupted by gunshots. The telltale ping of ricochets and perforations of the RV’s stainless steel hull reaches my ears.

“Shit,” Father and I both say. Like a spooked spider he’s up the ladder, scanning the area with the periscope. I resume my position against the wall with my shotgun. Father flashes me a series of signals: Two men. Armed. 50 metres east.

Mister Disappearing Act returns, vaulting himself into the RV and slamming the door. “It’s the League!” he wails.

“What are you doing?” I scream. “You’re screwing up the contingency plan!”

“The what? Quick, give me my rifle back, they’re coming!”

“Auugh,” I moan.

“Regan!” Father shouts. “Drive.”

“Toward them, or…?” I ask as I rush up to the cockpit.

“Nobody puts holes in Charlotte,” he says. I chuckle as I start up the vehicle. Dad is back up the ladder, getting ready to unleash precision justice on the League jerks or whoever they are.

I see them down the road, two men with assault rifles. They make for the ditches when Charlotte begins picking up speed, and I thank pre-Doom engineering for bullet-proof glass.

“Sorry boys,” I say. “When you shoot first without asking questions…we shoot back.”

I feel a tug at my belt holster and I tense up. In my right ear I can hear the telltale click of the safety and the mechanical grind of the hammer pulling back.

“You sly asshole,” I say. My knuckles are white on the wheel.

“Those are my friends your dad is about to shoot at,” he says.

“They shot first,” I say, cursing myself for having more wit than sense. Charlotte continues rolling toward the shooters, who have begun firing at us from their entrenched position. “Plus it looks like they’re trying to hit you, too.”

“They know what they’re doing. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll drive exactly where I tell you to drive.”

I can hear my heart thumping in my chest. If Father is aware that something is amiss, he has made no sign. However I haven’t heard any shots from the hatch yet.

“You might put a hole in my head,” I say. “It’s a chance you could take. But seeing as how my hands are on the wheel, when I go, this RV is going to careen out of control and you’ll fly around like a pinball.”

“What’s a…?”

“Plus there’s still this scattergun in my lap. I hear people’s nerves twitch quite a bit when they get their brains blown out.”

“Plus,” I hear Father say behind me, “If you do anything other than put that gun down, you’re dead anyway.”

My sigh of relief and the hum of the engine are the only sounds for a moment. I don’t know how it’s possible to feel shaky when my hands are so tight on the steering wheel. I can see him lower the gun out of the corner of my eye, and I’m expecting to hear Father’s rifle next.

The guy gets the butt of the rifle in the back of the head instead. His face strikes the glass and he falls backward, howling. There is a bloody spot where his nose smashed against the windshield. Then Father lays into him, fists swinging.

“You fucking bastard!” he shouts, his voice at a fever-pitch.

“Dad!” I shout. The road ends in a cul-de-sac, and the other two assailants are still behind us.

“What?” He looks up, fists bloody. Our prisoner is still alive, sobbing again, blood and tears and snot all mixed up on his face.

“We still have two guys with guns out there,” I remind him.

“Right.” The utility cable is out of his pocket in a flash. He ties knots around our prisoner’s wrists, then loops the wire through the passenger seat’s frame, pulling it tight. Meanwhile, I start turning Charlotte around, scanning the road we’d just come down for signs of the other two men. All I can see is the cloud of dust and debris we’ve stirred up.

“What’s the plan, Dad?”

“We go.”

“Umm…the truck?”

“I’m not sticking around for a pointless gunfight, kiddo. We can get a new one in the city.”

“What about Mr. Backstabber over here?”

Father spares a glance at him. He’s breathing through his mouth because his nose is smashed in, staring at us like we’re horrific monsters of some kind.

Lay off it, I think. It’s not like we’d leave you for the wild dogs.

“He stays with us until I get all the information I want out of him.”

I hit the gas. The men are lying in wait in the ditches up ahead. They take another few pot-shots at the RV, to little effect. One of them heroically attempts to run alongside us and make a leaping grab for the door handle, but his attempt fails. I don’t hear the crunch and scream when his leg goes under the back tire, but I imagine it in my head and grin.

“Nice people, the Kawitzen Tribe,” Father remarks as we reach the intersection and turn the corner.

“I’m not with them,” the guy manages to mumble between the bloody froth and spittle in his mouth.

“Who are you with, then?” Father asks. “The League?”

Our young captive stares at the floor, as though he thinks we’re going to torture him or something.

“Hey what’s your name, guy?” I ask.

“Mason,” he says. I’m surprised he actually told me.

“You’re named after the jars? Or like…someone who builds walls?”

Mason doesn’t answer. He’s too busy blubbering again. For a moment, I almost forget that he’s a back-stabbing, CD-crushing gun-thieving liar.

“Cheer up, you’re not going to die,” I tell him.

“Yes I am,” he insists.

Doom’s Daughter, Chapter 2

((I’ll be posting this series by chapter from here on in)

 (Photo credit)

(License)

 

Father and I have thirty-seven rehearsed contingency plans, everything ranging from wild dog attacks to flash floods to the (extremely) unlikely event that some psycho somewhere found out how to launch and detonate a nuclear missile. Noise outside the RV is something we’ve had to deal with before; nine times out of ten it’s animals sniffing around, but once in a while it’s a human, and they’re unpredictable at the best of times.

Our movements are fluid and practiced as we get into position. Father glides silently up the top-hatch ladder, holding his rifle by the stock. I get the shotgun from under the bed and press myself flat against the wall next to the door.

Father’s custom ‘periscope’ allows him to monitor the outside from just below the hatch. His cameras feed into a screen he has jury-rigged to the ladder.

One man, he signals. Armed. Wait.

            Father opens the hatch painstakingly slowly. He greases it regularly but it still groans once in a while. Thankfully, it does not this time. He lifts himself out of the hatch, preparing to get the jump on the man and force him to throw down his weapon.

Except the latch in front of me turns and suddenly the door is swinging outward. I make a clicking sound, slightly masked by the creaking door, but Father doesn’t seem to hear it. I freeze in place, gripping my gun tightly and holding my breath.

A boot enters first: black, worn, work-boot style, caked with mud and dirt. The man that follows is younger than I expect, probably no older than twenty. His muss of sandy-blonde hair is mostly hidden under a dark toque and his cheeks and chin have a dusting of pale stubble. He’s startlingly good-looking, in fact, and as I try to remain invisible against the wall I find myself hoping we don’t have to kill him. I’m betting his Winchester is loaded.

“The fuck is all this?” he whispers as he gazes around at our abode. His accent is funny and I have to stifle a giggle.

Focus, Regan¸ I think. Check his gear.

            He’s surprisingly bundled up, given the mild weather. I see no signs of Kevlar or other armour, but he does have a backpack and a large hunting knife at his belt.

He walks right by me, straight for the CDs I left on my bed.

“Hey!” I blurt out. Shit. As he wheels around I panic, dropping to the floor and kicking his legs out from under him. He falls softly upon the mattress, but I cringe as I hear an unwelcomed crunch of plastic from beneath him. He’s startled, either by the sound or from me tripping him, and his gun goes off.

Whoops, I think. I check my vitals. No holes. It looks like he poked a hole in the ceiling.

“Dad?” I shout as I kick the rifle out of the man’s hands. “Don’t fucking move!” I bark, aiming my shotgun barrel at his midsection. “And get off my CDs!”

“Which one?” he asks urgently. “Don’t move or get off your CDs?”

“Ugh, just get on the floor and put your hands behind your head.”

“Oh fuck, don’t kill me,” he pleads as he follows my instructions. He begins to sob and I suddenly find him less attractive.

“Regan?” Father comes down the ladder to discover that I already have the situation in hand. “Are you ok?”

“I’ve got this, dad.”

“Where’s his gun?”

“Over there,” the guy points to the shelves.

“Don’t you move a muscle,” Father tells him as he picks up the Winchester. “That hole you put in my roof was inches away from being a hole in my dick.” He inspects the weapon. “Except that you need to take better care of your weapons, kid. What kind of amateur scavenger bullshit is this?”

“I’m not a scavenger,” he insists. I lower my shotgun and he relaxes a little, bringing an arm down to wipe tears from his eyes. “I’m a hunter.”

“You’re not likely to find a lot of deer in an RV,” Father quips.

“Sorry. I heard strange sounds. Thought I should investigate.”

“Say ‘sorry’ again,” I tell him.

“I really am sorry, I didn’t know that…”

I giggle. Father shoots me a warning glare.

“What?” the guy asks.

“You say ‘sorry’ weird…I thought it was funny.”

“Any more of you around here?” Father asks. He’s lowered his guard but I can tell he’s still got an eye trained on our captive. He walks over to the crates and grabs his cleaning supplies.

The guy fixes Father with a wary stare. “Where are you from?”

“Nowhere close to here.” Father checks the rifle chamber to ensure it is empty, then begins cleaning the weapon.

“So you’re…not with the League?”

“What’s the League?” Father doesn’t look up from his work.

The man glances at me, looking for a reaction, perhaps, but I shrug.

“You really don’t know about the League?” he decides to sit up. I have my gun pointed to the floor but I refuse to let my guard down completely. He still has the knife.

“Is it a group I should be worried about?”

“Yes. We’ve been fighting them for years.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” I ask.

“The Kawitzen Tribe.”

Father and I glance at each other. This time we both shrug.

“Does your tribe…trade?” I venture.

“Of course we do.”

“Regan,” Father says, a tone of warning present in his voice.

“What?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

Father glances at the man on the floor. “This is not the time to discuss such things.”

“Fine,” I say. I look at our guest. “Would you excuse us for a minute, please? Oh, and don’t touch anything if you want to live. Especially my CDs. And you probably shouldn’t sneak off if you want your rifle back.” I glare at Father and signal the words cockpit, talk, please.

            Father is the master of the long-suffering sigh. He follows me to the cab of the RV.

“Tell me, dad, what’s the point of scavenging if we don’t trade with anyone?”

“Knowledge and survival. Besides, we do trade.”

“But never anywhere new.” I throw up my hands. “Never with anyone who could possibly benefit from our knowledge about survival.”

“I’m not getting involved in local warfare, Regan.”

“Nobody’s asking you to!”

He slumps into the driver’s seat and presses a finger and thumb to his temple. “There’s no need to yell.”

“Who cares? That guy probably already thinks we’re crazy.”

“Good. Then we can return to the mainland before we run into trouble here.”

“Ugh.” I stare out the window at the fallen-over power lines snaking across the road. “Have you ever considered the fact that I like meeting new people?”

Father is silent for a moment. “I know,” he says. “And I’m sorry you’re stuck on the road with me. When we get back to Novamerica you can…”

“Don’t be stupid,” I interrupt. “I don’t want to stay anywhere. I just…want you to put your trust in strangers once in a while.”

“You can’t trust anybody, Regan. Not even yourself.”

“Very philosophical, dad. Maybe that’s true, but once in a while, maybe it’s enough to trust that someone else isn’t out to kill you.”

“Fine, Regan. We’ll go trade with his tribe.”

I beam at him, but the smile is short-lived. When I glance back to the rear of the RV, the stranger is nowhere to be found.

 

Doom’s Daughter, Part II

Father perches like a sniper-scarecrow, scanning the street for signs of life or danger as I clamber into the RV, our mobile home and fortress. We’d been using a tank for a while, but that’s another story. Mainly it wasn’t very comfortable, nor did it have a lot of amenities. We sure didn’t get bothered by scavengers when we were rolling, though.

To an untrained eye, our home would seem a mess: shelves overflowing with books and manuals, sketchbooks, journals. These are our lifeblood, our connection to knowledge long forgotten and lost to most. First aid. Hydroponic farming. Engine repair. Chemistry, metallurgy, mycology, electronics. A hunter’s field guide. Farmer’s almanacs. Nautical maps. Digital data is kept separate (if at all): diskettes, CDs, USB data sticks. Most of the ones Father kept were taken from military or government buildings.

Milk crates, each labelled, are lashed to their cubbyholes with bungee cords like security cordons. These are overflowing but meticulously catalogued by Father: wires, nails, screws, tape, string, gauze, cloth, oil, ammo, batteries, paper, pencils. Guns are kept in the safe, tools next to it, in what Father refers to as the ‘cockpit’. Food is kept in the kitchenette, but most of the space is dominated by heat lamps and potted vegetables.

Our survival gear for long forays in the deep wilderness is kept in the truck bed, along with our supply of gasoline. My siphoning skills are such that I have finally forgotten the taste of gas on my tongue.

Next to our beds is the ‘media centre’, which is predominantly a stacked AV system with an amp, tape deck, CD player, record player, speakers and computer. Sometimes I use an auxiliary jack or dock for an old cell phone or MP3 player we find, but once I download what I want onto the hard drive I usually leave these behind. If we took everything we scavenged with us we’d have to have a whole caravan of campers.

Father claims that by pre-Doom standards we ‘bring everything but the kitchen sink’, an adage that I still don’t quite understand because we have a kitchen sink. Given how much there is to claim, how much is lying around, we travel bare bones.

Father climbs in from the roof hatch and sets his rifle down on his bed, the only unclaimed, uncluttered space other than the floor.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he accuses. His tone is lighthearted; this is our first winter spent in a mild climate since I was a little girl, and it has kept him in high spirits.

“If I found anything good?” I lay my backpack down on my own bed and upend its contents, each wrapped in plastic (Forever-Cloth, Father calls it): wild vegetables, cargo pants, a local trail guide.

“That’s it? No rare Rachmaninoff recordings, no floor safes? No sports cars we can take for a spin?”

I shrug. “There was an empty gun case in one house. No signs of recent human tracks or habitation but based on what we’ve seen around here so far I bet there’s a local community somewhere. Supposedly this was good farmland at one point even though it’s a rocky island. Maybe we should see if we can find them and do some trading.”

Father makes a sour face and gathers the vegetables, placing them in the fridge. “I don’t know…” he trails off. “You never know how the locals are going to react to strangers. Or what they believe…or behave like.”

This again, I think.

“Remember Freetown?” he asks.

“Of course I do.”

“Not so free, was it?”

“Ugh, dad.” I go to the bathroom to try on the cargo pants.

“I’m just saying that sometimes people can be more trouble than they’re worth.” I can hear him clearly through the door. Every scuff and squeak is audible inside the RV; nothing is secret. Don’t even get me started on Father’s snoring.

The pants are a little big around the waist, but that’s what belts are for. What matters is that the pants are durable, with lots of pockets.

“I really don’t relish the idea of running for my life firing a gun over my shoulder again,” he continues.

“That happened once. You can’t assume the worst of every group of people we might chance to encounter just because one town was under the thumb of a psychopath.”

“It’s kept me alive so far.”

I open the bathroom door and glare at him. He’s thumbing through the trail guide in a disinterested fashion.

“If you were so worried about your own safety you would have stayed in Novamerica.” I cross over to my bed and start skimming through my music albums.

“Nice bunch of people,” he muses, “great to trade with, but their ideas about the future of the world…”

I grab a CD and smirk, popping it into the player.

“Have you ever considered the notion that I like meeting new people, dad?”

“Well you’ll just have to deal with some loneliness,” he counters. “If we went around saying hello to every post-Doom settlement we found, we’d be dead seven times over already.”

“Sure.” I press play and Dragonforce starts blaring through the speakers. Father shoots me a baleful look; this is my latest tactic in shutting down conversations and it drives him completely crazy. If he gets to control where we go, I can at least be in charge of how many bullshit reasons I have to listen to.

“Would you shut that off, please?” he shouts. “I wasn’t done.”

“What?” I say, even though can hear him clearly. I accentuate my feigned deafness with some over-the-top air guitar. Father used to join in when I was younger, but around the time I discovered heavy metal he seemed to have unveiled a strong distaste for anything except classical music.

“I said: shut it off. Someone could hear.”

“There’s nobody around for miles, dad,” I insist as the music blares on.

“Regan.”

When he calls me by my first name, I know he’s serious, but I’m too pissed off to want to listen. I crank it up.

He doesn’t shout again or say anything, but dashes over to the amp and shuts the whole system off, pressing a finger to his lips with his other hand.

We have an intricate series of hand signals, he and I, and the gestures he makes with his free hand cause my pulse quicken.

Noise. Outside.

Doom’s Daughter

A couple of years ago I started writing a story called Doom’s Daughter. Then I started working on Crystal Secrets and most other projects sort of fell to the wayside. However it was always my intention to include episodic stories in my blog, so I’m rebooting Doom’s Daughter, along with some other ideas that will show up on the Funferblog from time to time.

Comments welcome.

Doom’s Daughter

I think it was a garden once. The wooden frame, like everything in this yard, is overgrown with weeds and brambles. I only found it by stumbling over the lumber with my boot, very nearly falling face-first into a patch of briar thorns. My machete will cut through a lot of things, but I don’t have time to chop up old rose bushes when there’s a whole street of houses to go through. The house is my primary concern, along with the possibility of fruits and vegetables in the back yard.

I hack a path through the weeds and beechwood saplings to trace the border of what I hope is a small box garden. The house is to my right, two stories tall. There is a small glass enclosure attached; I think it might be a kind of greenhouse. It could be promising, but there’s also a good chance that it’s barren. The garden is more likely to yield hidden food.

The frame ends underneath a crabapple tree. Ordinarily such a find would be worth an hour of fruit picking, even if the fruit is tiny and tart, but although the Pacific winter is mild and damp, it’s winter all the same. Any fruit the tree has borne this year has already been picked or is rotten upon the ground, just like the odd pear-shaped fruit at the other end of the yard, brown and soft upon the branch. I don’t think it’s a pear tree though – the ones that I’ve seen, down south, are much bigger when they bear fruit of the same size.

I kneel down and begin sifting through damp weeds and lush grass, thankful for the thick gloves that protect me from rose thorns. Beneath the hardy forest plants, I am rewarded. There are deep green leaves of various shapes, and the soil is still soft despite years of neglect. This rocky island ground, I have discovered, is usually unyielding.

I shrug out of my backpack and grab my trowel from its place in a side compartment. Then I set to work digging, looking for edible roots and stalks. After a few minutes, I have achieved a bit of success. There are small potatoes and a healthy amount of kale. My mouth waters but I restrain myself. The kale will taste better cooked, perhaps with dried berries.

There is a sound in the brush behind me and I realize that I’ve kept my guard down. I wheel around on my haunches and un-sling my rifle in a practiced motion. As I pop the safety off, I stare down the barrel into the placid black eyes of a doe. She munches on leaves, unafraid, though her ears are perked and alert. I am metres away.

I lower the gun. Meat has been plentiful; it’s greens that I need. I don’t have the time to deal with an entire deer carcass, anyway. I let her eat and turn my attention back to the garden. I hear her wander off after a few minutes, and I am again alone in the overgrown yard.

I gather as much as the garden will offer. Not enough to fill my backpack, but enough for at least a meal or two. The interior of the house promises more unless it has already been thoroughly scavenged, and though I will likely find no foodstuffs, there could be other interesting treasures within.

I check the sky. Grey, dull, threatening to rain as always. It’s impossible to tell the position of the sun, and I haven’t found the right parts to fix my watch yet. There are two more houses on the street to check. Still, there’s enough light for me to decide that I don’t need to hurry just yet.

The back entrance is a sliding door, glass long shattered. The old pieces of glass crunch and pop underfoot, squishing deeper into the moss that has crept well into the carpet of the abode. The glass was probably broken by the earthquake that rocked this area a few years back rather than by looters; many properties had been reduced to little more than ruins, and although some structures survived mainly intact, none were completely undamaged.

I draw my revolver from my belt holster and step through the threshold.

I quickly survey the walk-out basement and listen for movement. There haven’t been any squatters in the area yet, but I’m not about to let my guard down. There is a kitchen off to my left, cabinets left ajar and empty. Ahead is a living area, complete with computer desks, couch, television and bookshelves.

All useless, except for the bookshelves. I approach with discretion, my eyes and gun barrel fixed on the dark hallway. Nothing stirs. The house is still and silent as a crypt. It could very well be a tomb of sorts, though I have seen no remains yet.

The bookshelves have not been ransacked. It is rare for me to find a place where anything other than food, weapons and basic tools have been looted. I scan the shelves with a tenuous smirk, looking for anything that could pique my interest. It is mostly fiction. I’ve been collecting enough stories to last me quite a while, and I don’t have room on my own bookshelf. The only space I have available is for practical knowledge.

Astrophysics – interesting, but not useful. Computer programming – boring and worthless to me right now. History – well, I’ve had my fill of history for a while. I find no medical texts, no gardening books, nothing about radios or chemistry or guns. I turn away from the bookshelf and head down the hallway. There are three doors – one on each side of me, and one straight ahead. All three are ajar.

The first door is the one on my right. Sure enough, it’s a bedroom, and as expected, it’s occupied. Bedrooms are usually where I find bodies.

To call them corpses, however, is being generous. Usually there’s little remaining but bones. It’s impossible to tell how this one died, but most of the skeletons that I find look as though they were curled up at the end. It suggests either fear or comfort in those final moments. I suspect the former – The Doom was not kind to humanity. I was told that it was terrible in every way conceivable.

The room has little to offer me. The corpse left behind a closet full of clothing for an adult male. The size looks like a good fit, but there is little of practical use that I don’t already own. I check the dresser, delighted to find cargo pants in my waist size in the bottom drawer. I stuff them in my backpack.

The rest of the house has nothing that I need. When I emerge from the front door, the clouds are drizzling. I zip up my hunting jacket and shiver. There are two more houses on the street, but I’m cold and tired and hungry, and it’s wet. I decide to head back home.

It’s a long street, long and lonely in this forgotten part of the world that is slowly returning to the wild. Human habitation is being overtaken. Weeds are sprouting through the many cracks in the asphalt. The blackberry brambles to my right have become a fortress around a standing abode, and I am reminded of the old fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty. With a sense of gloom, I tell myself sternly that the only things sleeping in that house are bugs and bones.

Fields that horses once paced are filled with shoulder-high grasses, where cougars hide and hunt the wild chickens and deer and dogs. Many of the poles once holding power lines have long fallen over, and the wires stretch across the road, innocuous.

I keep my rifle at the ready and shake out some of the damp from my hair. It’s growing past my eyebrows again. I don’t like shaving my head in the winter, but I don’t like how it gets in the way when it’s long. I remind myself that it doesn’t really matter what it looks like, so scissors will work fine.

Home is at the end of the street, hidden behind overgrown hedges in a gravel driveway. As I approach, I make a low whistle, punctuated by a trill at the end.

I wait.

I hear a quork in reply – it sounds like a raven. I round the corner of the hedge. Home is right where I left it. The truck and RV appear to be just another part of the scenery. Abandoned vehicles are just as common as abandoned houses.

Atop the RV, a gaunt figure in a long brown duster sits and smokes a cigarette. His face is shrouded by long silver hair and a tangled mass of salt-and-pepper beard. Across his lap is a scoped rifle. He grins widely at me.

“Hello, daughter,” he says in his rough timbre. “Did you find anything interesting?”