Grants Pass (12 page)

Then again…

We’re no angels, Bo said, and he was
right. But I’m no devil, either; and I don’t mind saying that somewhere on the
road I got fond of the idea of Grants Pass. Maybe it’s just because there’s
nowhere else for me to go, but someone’s got to beat them there. Someone’s got
to warn that girl, Kayley, and Jenny, and all the crazy dreamers who set
themselves up for a world after the one we knew.

Biography

Ivan Ewert

Ivan Ewert’s work has previously
appeared online in
The Edge of Propinquity
. He lives in an old house in
northern Illinois with a lovely wife and enough gardens to feed them for the
first month after the fall. Once that’s gone, he’s ready to look for work on
one of the neighboring farms, but walking to Oregon isn’t out of the question.

Afterword

The very concept of Grants Pass
seems based on an unspoken faith in the idea that you
will
be one of the
survivors, you
will
make it to this fabled promised land, and you
will
set up a new life there, regardless of what the current inhabitants want. It’s
a frontier mentality straight out of the American Westerns which I tried to
echo here.

But that kind of faith, combined
with the dark obsession that insists the world will end, gives rise to people
like Bo — strong-willed bastards who can tear down the world for their own
personal reasons.

There’s also a school of faith that
says a person can be tempted to the edge of madness, but can come back stronger
for it. That’s what I believe, and that’s what changes Davey from a would-be
killer to a post-apocalyptic Paul Revere.

If the future comes apart, then
everyone’s going to have to flirt with the darkness. Finding a reason to
continue being human, being fundamentally decent, despite that temptation, is
what makes a man — hell, what makes a hero — in my view.

I hope it never comes. But if it
does, I hope my faith is proven right.

The Chateau de Mons

Jennifer Brozek

KimmyShan
: You serious about Grants Pass?

Kayley98052
: Serious as a heart attack.

Kayley98052
: Actually, no. But it’s a really good mental exercise. You know? I
mean, what would YOU do if the world ended? Would you be prepared? How would
you live? Where would you go?

KimmyShan
: I can’t go to Grants Pass. I’m in Belgium, remember?

Kayley98052
: Oh. Right. Hard to get here. Guess you’ll have to make your own
Grants Pass. Need to have enclaves all over the world for survivors.

KimmyShan
: The world isn’t gonna end.

Kayley98052
: Not the point. Point is to think about it. It’s a mental exercise.

KimmyShan
: It scares me.

Kayley98052
: The end of the world is scary. But it’s scarier to survive it.
What then?

KimmyShan
: I hope Dad’s stationed back in the States if the end of the world
comes. I’ll just go to Grants Pass. Then, you’ll tell me what to do then.

Kayley98052
: What if I die, too? Nothing says I’m going to live through the end
of the world. I’ve just written about it and suggested a plan. If I survive,
I’m gonna go to Grants Pass. I hope my friends from all over will meet me
there. Some have already said they would. But, if I die, my friends will meet
each other and survive together. Grants Pass is a good place for that.

KimmyShan
: You won’t die.

Kayley98052
: Everybody dies. That’s the easy part. It’s surviving that’s hard.

****

Kim reread that instant message
log from over a year ago. She had taped it into her journal because she had
wanted to remember it. It had changed her life. Kayley had not realized how
young Kim was. Kim had just been an internet friend after all. Since she had
typed in mostly complete sentences, readers thought she’d been older than her
fifteen, highly impressionable, years. This conversation, and others like it,
had sunk deep into her psyche. In turn, she had peppered her parents about
emergency preparedness and plans of action, just in case something ‘bad’
happened. At first, her parents had been amused, then concerned, at her
obsession over the idea of the world ending.

Her parents had decided that Kim’s
obsession was a reflection of her nerves at being stationed in a foreign
country for the first time. To fix this, her parents had gone through the
motions of preparing for any eventuality. They stocked up on freeze dried
foods, bottled water, power generators, propane tanks, emergency kits and
contingency plans over and above what the military required of them. They even
went so far as to run several disaster drills. Reassured that her family would
survive anything that came at it, Kim relaxed and thoughts of imminent death
and destruction left the forefront of her mind.

No one had any idea that a year
later the unthinkable would come to pass, and that this preparation would mean
the difference between life and death. At first, the news of California’s
devastating earthquake had been interesting in a train wreck sort of way. Then,
it became downright disturbing as the news of three, simultaneous plagues hit
countries all over the world.

Kim closed her journal, trying to
hold back the rush of tears that threatened to overwhelm her. It had been six
weeks since her father had called from the military base to tell her and her
mother that it was being locked down due to a lethal outbreak of the Super Flu
virus. He ordered them to stay at home and not to leave or even open the front
door for any reason until he called again or came for them.

They lost power four weeks ago, but
due to the previous year’s preparation, she and her mother had remained
relatively comfortable. Last week, a woman and her young son had come begging
for food. Her mother had answered the door against her father’s orders and had
given the hungry pair what was left of the fresh fruit and bread.

They had repaid the kindness with
death.

Her mother had caught the flu by
that evening. She had died this morning and Kim knew she needed to bury her
mother’s body as soon as possible, out of respect and safety.

She wrapped her mother up in the
sheets she had been laying on when she died. Her mother was much lighter than
she had expected. Always a small woman, her mother’s body seemed as tiny and
light as a child’s, rather than the vibrant spitfire everyone was always saying
she took after. Except, now, there was no one to say that to her anymore. She
was alone and, perhaps, the only person still alive in Mons. Maybe, the only
person still alive in Belgium.

Taking out her fury and fear at the
realization of her abruptly singular status, Kim dug a large hole in the far left
corner of the backyard, next to the stone wall that enclosed it. Once her
mother’s body was in the ground, she fashioned a wooden cross to mark the grave
with her mother’s name, date of birth and date of death. She spoke a prayer for
her mother’s soul out loud, her voice cracking with tired grief. Then, she
walked to the base of the walnut tree and slumped against it, looking at the
backyard and home her parents had fallen in love with at first sight.

“
Jean Paul
tells me that it is called the Chateau de Mons.” Her father had said. “It’s
over three hundred years old. In times of dangers, the villagers would come
here and camp in the backyard within the safety of the stone wall. Can you
imagine that?”

Looking at the backyard that was
bigger than a football field — with a vegetable garden larger than the backyard
she had had on base back in the States — she could imagine it. Friends of her
parents had jokingly started calling them the Von Taylors, to reflect their
“landed gentry” status.

Kim had felt like a princess when
they had first moved into the manor house. It had a full stone cellar that
included both a root cellar and a wine room, the first floor with a library,
the second floor with all of the bedrooms and her mother’s art studio, a full
attic big enough to be another bedroom if they had wanted it and even a working
bell tower — though she had been forbidden to ever ring the bell that dwelled
above the attic.

The exchange rate had been good
enough to allow her family to afford a maid once a week. The house was large
enough that a maid was needed. Marie Rose had come on her bicycle every week
with a smile. In her broken English, she would tell Kim how much of a good girl
she was. Not like the other “ugly Americans” she had previously worked for.
Now, there was no more Marie Rose to spoil her. She was the only one who
remained and the house’s size dwarfed her; making her feel that much smaller
and alone. She hurried back inside so she would not have to look at it any
longer.

It only took two days of wandering
through the empty house, futilely wishing and willing the electricity or phone
to start working again, before she decided to venture outside. She armed
herself with her mother’s Sig-220 and her father’s 9mm Smith and Wesson pistol.
As a military brat, she had been brought up around weapons of all types and
knew how to use most of them. The weight of the two pistols seemed to be her
only security in this newly silent world.

She was surprised at how frightened
she was of leaving the safe haven of her home. Part of her protested, insisting
her father would come for her. The other part suspected that if he was not
already dead, anyone still alive at the base would be under very tight
restrictions — to ensure the continued safety of the Supreme Headquarters Allied
Powers Europe. If SHAPE, as an entity, still existed. However, given the lack
of any sort of air traffic in the last three weeks, Kim was almost positive
that the base was as deserted as the streets of the city that she walked
through.

After a few hours of wandering, she
returned home, happy to be in familiar surroundings. She thought about the
instant message conversation she had had with her friend Kayley, and all of the
talks they had had about what to do if you survived the end of the world. Neither
of them had ever honestly believed it would happen. But, here they were. The
end of the world as everyone had known it had come. She wondered if Kayley had
survived and thought about Grants Pass, wishing with all her heart that she was
in the States, where she had at least a chance of making it to the meeting
place.

“
But, I’m
not. I’m here in Belgium and I’m still alive.” She dug out her journal again,
to reread what she had written over a year ago.

“
July 14th,
Kayley asked me what I would do if I was still in Belgium and the end of the
world came. I didn’t have an answer for her but she really pushed me. She made
me think about it. I really didn’t want to think about it. I don’t like the
idea of the world ending. I don’t like it ending with me in a country where I
don’t speak any of the languages.

“
I answered
her after I thought about it. I decided I would make my home like Grants Pass.
At least, to begin with. We have everything we need: a large house, a working
garden (oh, the tons of weeds I have pulled from that thing), a fresh water
well on the property, weapons, wood burning fireplaces, a potbelly stove, a
huge pile of wood, wild game in the fields and a fortified yard. I would call
everyone still living to the house using the bell, just like they did in the
old days. It would be kind of like Noblesse Oblige — the noble’s obligation.”

She closed the journal again,
thinking about what she had written.
Noblesse Oblige
. The bell would
reach farther than she could on foot. It would bring all the survivors to a
central location that could house and feed them. The garden was ready to
harvest. But, if she rang the bell, she might call bad people to her only place
of safety. Or, she could call people like herself. Survivors who needed help
and wanted to help others. She had the means to help and she did not want to
remain alone. Fear of the unknown warred with her frightened loneliness.

She thought about Kayley and the
idea of Grants Pass. Kayley had had no idea who would come to Grants Pass when
she presented the idea to the online community. She just gave it as an open
invitation: Come one, come all. If the Chateau de Mons was to be like Grants
Pass, she would have to take the same chance.

She left the journal on her bed and
walked into the large hallway. To the side there was the bell rope she had been
forbidden to touch. It felt rough in her hand. There was a moment of shock and
fear when her experimental tug met with a strong resistance. She had made up
her mind to call everyone; the bell
had
to work. She did not know what
she would do if it did not. Take a sledgehammer to it instead? However, her
second adrenalin filled pull elicited the loud ringing she had been looking
for.

The ringing was louder than she had
expected, but she did not stop. If this first call did not bring people to her,
she would try again at regular intervals over the coming weeks until she was
certain no one was coming. Then, she would decide what to do. For now, she was
willing to make the call and hope for the best.