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Asleep and Safe in Army Base Manchester

Plans to dreams. Healthinfini.png798.jpg

The rest of that afternoon I spent stocking up the jeep, with food, guns, gasoline and a few spare cans of it, packed neatly in the back, until it was filled tight. The handguns of course went under the seats. The Uzi’s were placed as hidden as could be, underneath the supplies. I made a bed for her folding down the back seats, knowing she'd want to sleep.

The extra gas we took because we had it, left over from the tank of our old generator package, a few thousand gallons ready to be siphoned off. The gas stations had been empty for years but there were always a few parked and abandoned vehicles not quite empty and these were drained and used by the roving bands. Just like food, there were all sorts of stocks out there, left in cupboards or sheds or basements everywhere, from the suddenness of the final pandemic.

But these were now growing scarce, with the remaining bands pillaging every town. It was only the most remote houses and farms, overlooked or unknown, that still held goods. I could pack the jeep for a few weeks but thought we might look for these places if the trip took longer than planned. Our first stop would be her old hospital near Barre. We’d get there by mid-day, leaving in the morning. If that was destroyed or abandoned, we’d keep on going, all the way to Boston, till we found a doctor who could heal her leg.

I figured we’d dress in white and check out this New Order firsthand. With just two in a car, one wounded, we’d never be considered ‘rovers’ by any authorities we ran into. That was our plan, to reach them and ask their help. Our worst fear was coming across some of these nomad brutes, who might kill us for our vehicle or just for fun, from what I’d heard. But we could take back roads or just drive fast down the highways.

I discussed this with Bill at length, after loading the car and he preferred the latter. We didn’t even know if there were many ‘rovers’ left after three years, or anything about the Church or how it fared or changed. We didn’t know anything, but I was willing to jump right into the middle of this void and see where I landed, all for Nancy, who remained unusually silent throughout our discussion, she was so tired.

The next morning, we set out. There seemed to be no one in our little town. I gave it a quick tour, and it seemed desolate, empty. Then we drove to Waterbury, equally empty and then the highway to Barre and her hospital. It was standing but partially gutted. I left her with an Uzi and walked through the halls and some rooms. There were papers scattered on the floor, but no equipment and no one there. I visited the office of our young doctor, where we’d spent delightful hours three years ago. His desk and his chair were still there, and I rifled it for any information, his drawers full of files.

The only paper that might have relevance was a letterhead from Boston, but it was torn, just the top part left. But it did have a date. It was soon after the pandemic battle was lost and the Church in its infancy. I guessed it was a directive for him to go there.

I took this slip to Nancy. Then I said: “Let’s just drive there and get this over with. They'll either kill us or help us. I know this is rash, but I want the whole thing done with. There are too many unknowns to even think about a plan. So let’s go”.

She gave me a faint smile, and we set off, at full speed, like fools or maniacs, into a complete unknown.

When we reached the outskirts of Manchester, the highway deserted all along, we came to a roadblock, or rather a single jeep with three, armed soldiers in it in strange white military gear. There was a water tower next to the vehicle and a fourth soldier just climbing down the rungs. That must have been their lookout, as you could see far and wide from the top. It was just getting dark.

The jeep blocked the road. We pulled up and stopped right in front of them and raised our empty hands to show we had no weapons. The man in charge got out, walked over and said nothing but he seemed to admire our vehicle. Machine gun in hand he walked right around it, then addressed me: “Nice Wrangler. I haven’t seen one of these in years, and it seems to be running fine the way you sped towards us. But what are you folks up to. There’s been no one on this highway from your direction in six months”?

“We’ve been living in the country, on our farm. My wife’s had an accident and needs medical assistance. You're getting a little close, aren't you"?

“I'm not worried about that. You know that’s a crime, don’t you, to be living in no man’s land, punishable by death”?

His tone was pleasant as he said this, almost unconcerned, and now the other three soldiers gathered near, not threatening, just curious at this unusual and extremely rare scene before them.

“Where you from”?

“Vermont, near Burlington”.

“How did you survive the all the renegades and get this far? They kill everyone”.

I told him I didn’t come across anyone all the way here.

Then he turned to the soldier beside him: “I told you Joey they’re almost all dead and we’ve been at this post wasting our time when we could be scavenging for cigarettes and booze”.

I had a good feeling about these men. The first thing I did was take the pack from my front pocket, lite up a smoke and offered him the half empty pack and my lighter to share with his men.

He nodded, lit one up, took a big drag and passed it around.

“Where do you live and how'd you last so long without getting sick or shot”?

“Our place is hidden in a remote valley, and we have everything there, a farm, a solar array, livestock, so we never had to leave. And nobody, till just three weeks ago, found us”.

“You must be pretty rich for such a setup and such a nice ride”. He said jokingly.

“Now you’ve committed two crimes with death penalties, to be outside the Church boundaries and rich. You know the Church hates that. If we handed you over to them, you’d be burned alive after the interrogation”.

Nancy was shaken by this declaration, looking at him with imploring eyes. He noticed that and then calmed her.

“But don’t worry lady. We don’t do that anymore. I’m talking about New York. This is Boston territory. We do things our way here”.

But he still had the look and voice of a hardened soldier, the way he didn’t thank me for the cigarettes. And his gun was still leveled at us. I thought he still might shoot us and throw us in the ditch at any moment, just to take the vehicle. But there was also something humane about his tone to Nancy. So I remained calm and tried to explain.

“I can’t help the fact that I was rich. I wrote a series of books a few years back and made a lot of money.”

Now one of the soldiers actually dropped his gun on the ground in disbelief, staring me right in my face. Then he quickly turned to his sergeant.

“You know who this is. I can’t believe my eyes. You're the prophet.” “Phil, this is him, the Church would give anything to get their hands on this guy. We thought you were dead. That’s what they said when they couldn’t find you. Can I shake your hand”?

The man in charge stared hard at me for a second and then said to the other: “Ya, you're right, that’s his face and that’s his wife too. You were plastered all over the billboards for years”.

He stepped back, and looked down, in deep meditation, lighting up another cigarette. The other soldiers came right up to us with big smiles. All lowered their weapons and the first shook my hand vigorously while the two on the other side just grinned. One of them patted Nancy on the shoulder.

“You saved a lot of lives”, he said. “Though there aren’t that many left. The Church declared both of you saints. You’re some of the few. I’ve never met a celebrity before.”

Then the one in charge took over again: “We’ll call the General right away, not the captain. We don’t want him stealing the show. Get on the walkie-talkie Joe and try to get his secretary, but don’t give anything away. Just tell him we have an extremely important package for the General and he’ll want to have it right away”.

This took a few minutes, our sergeant, or whoever he was, paced back and forth, waiting. But when he took the phone, he said he had two extremely important people in a car sitting in front of him and when he saw them, he wouldn’t believe his eyes.

Whatever the reply, the next minute one soldier motioned me out of the Wrangler and into the Jeep. They drove both vehicles fast, along the empty, dark streets of downtown. There were no lights on. The power was out.

But they didn’t go far. They swerved into an underground parking lot, stopped next to three other jeeps and ushered us up two staircases with flashlights, Nancy slowing the whole operation with her crutch. But the chief soldier ran ahead.

When we arrived, we entered and met a fine-looking officer, middle-aged, dapper in his white uniform and with a big smile on his face. The room was lit with two kerosene lamps. He ushered us in. He must be the General.

He greeted us both with a handshake. “Good job boys. You're gonna get something out of this. You were right, I can’t believe my eyes”.

“Lucas Crane, my God”, he said loudly, stepping up and shaking my hand, “and Nancy too in my office. Oh, I’m sorry, please have a seat at my desk. I see you must be in some pain". He pulled up a chair for her, then found a box as a stool for her leg. We’ll be able to help fix that up. But this is complicated, very complicated”.

I was extremely relieved when he said that, but I didn’t catch his drift when he mentioned ‘complicated’. So I asked what he meant.

“Don’t you know how messed up this situation is. I guess you’ve been away too long. You fell into the right hands though. Come sit at my desk. I’d offer you a drink, but we’ve run out, some eight months now".

“I can fix that”, I said. I turned to the soldier named Joe and asked if he could run down to the Cherokee and bring up a green suitcase, right behind the driver’s seat. Joe ran off and the General pulled up another seat for me, lighting two more lamps. With that the room was well lit. Then he took his spot on the other side.

When Joe returned he set the suitcase right on the desk. The General laughed, “look at this, green”. Then he opened it. Inside I’d packed six bottles of wine, dried sausages, fruitcake all wrapped up, jars of preserves and pickles, some bread baked three days ago along with six cases of cigarettes.

The day before, when packing, I went to our bunker. The door was still wide open, and I couldn’t resist bringing up a case of my best wine, against my own rule to keep it intact as a last resort. After all the trauma of the day before I needed a good drink and I didn’t especially like Vodka. I went back once more for supplies for the trip, having no idea how long we might be gone, or if we’d make it back, so I picked out the best items.

The Generals' eyes widened in disbelief at the sight, so did the soldier’s who’d all gathered round.

I had one of them open a bottle with his knife. “This is cause for a celebration”, I said. The General could only find two glasses and a cup, so we filled them and raised a toast to our good luck, handing the rest of the bottle to the soldiers. It was a fine vintage, twenty years old, and the general savored his first sip, as well as Nancy and I, while the men just gulped away greedily.

“I haven’t had anything this fine in years”, he complimented me.

“Well I was quite wealthy, and this is a very fine vintage.” I said, almost teasing them over the remark by the sergeant about being rich. “I had these all bought and packed away before the last wave, when money still had value”.

“Wise move, wise choice, young man. You surely were prophetic”. Every time someone called me ‘prophetic’ I immediately translated it into the word ‘lucky’. I hated that other word.

I was about to hand another bottle to the soldiers, as they’d finished it off in no time.

“You shouldn’t be giving them this fine wine. Give it to me. I bet the Bishop in Boston doesn’t have anything half this good”.

I remembered I’d also stashed a bottle of Vodka somewhere in the back seat and I told Joe once again to run down and find it. He was back in a flash. They could drink that. But I noticed all this time that they were especially ogling the cigarettes in my case. I asked the general if I could give them a few cartons. He nodded and I handed two to the sergeant. He slipped one inside his jacket and handed the other to his men.

Everyone was now in a glowing mood, and my plan was to elevate it even more and use this opportunity as a bargaining chip. “Let’s have some food”, I said, opening another bottle of wine.

We cleared part of the desk and now everything came out of the suitcase. The general asked if he could have another bottle of the wine. I gave him three more and slipped the last one into Nancy’s large purse, for myself. The food we quickly began to carve up and eat. It seemed like everyone was famished.

We intended to make sandwiches on our trip, so I packed a jar of mustard. They marveled at this like children. They sliced up the salami and spread it on thick, exclaiming how delicious it was.

After a half-hour of feasting and drinking, the general sitting behind his desk almost rubbing his belly in satisfaction, the four soldiers sitting on the floor behind us and still getting up sometimes to pick out another piece off his desk as if it was a platter of pastries, still passing the vodka around, I had to ask: “Don’t you get good rations anymore? There’s lots of this stuff left in the countryside, in empty houses if you know where to look for it”.

“We’ve run out of anything fine. And they won’t let us go on patrols anymore”, said the general. “It’s too bad as we always found good things to bring back, especially cigarettes. But then the heathens changed their tactics, became snipers, and then there’s the war”.

“A war”! I asked in disbelief.

“The Church is at war, split into two factions, which gives us a great deal more freedom now, that’s why we stay out here, guarding the frontier, to keep out of that mess. Boston is one camp and New York the other. You’re lucky you ran into us first. Boston holds the moderates, New York, the radicals. They run a tight ship over there. Any slip-up by anyone below priest rank and they'll kill you”.

“But we’re in a holding position. We don’t know what’s going to happen, so we wait and do nothing. You’re the first visitors we’ve had in ages. In the first year people of all sorts would straggle from the countryside, some on bicycles, half-starving and ragged, and if they showed no sign of disease we’d let them in, as long as they swore allegiance to our Church, especially after the vaccine.

“The vaccine”! I exclaimed again. “You have a vaccine”?

“Yes we do and that’s why we’re sitting with you right now, unconcerned. It works. Were immune, while the rest of the world is out there dying. We can give you both a pill tomorrow”.

I could hardly believe this great news. “But why aren’t you sharing it with everyone”.

“Well that’s the whole problem and the cause of the war”, the General went on. “It’s a long story but I suppose this is a good time to tell you. Just pour me another glass of that wine”.

He sent his soldiers away, telling the sergeant to come back in an hour. Then he put his feet up on the desk, his cartons of cigarettes and three bottles of wine beside him, glancing at them with a sly smile. Nancy and I were dying to hear this story, so we sat quiet.

“It happened, you might say, from the start”.

“You must have seen the U.N conferences and the first riots on TV”. I nodded. “Well there was a great deal of confusion at first. The Church didn’t even have a form or a set chain of command. When the few top leaders did emerge, they drew up a set of plans, a hierarchy of priests under them with different functions, but already they’d turned the mobs loose to burn everything. They had to do this to scare everyone into joining and they got it, full obedience from all those they didn’t kill.

“The few civil leaders joined them too. When the Pentagon went down, our Generals were at a loss what to do. Most of the older commanders were dead or dying. Everything was in shambles. We’d been busy for months moving people to the coast. That seemed like the sensible plan and those orders came from the top. But when we kept getting sick, decimated again and again, reduced to fragments, constantly reforming and reducing our brigades, that’s when the assembly took over. Most of our staffs were gone. We had one general left and he made a deal. We’d join forces with them for a good star rating, keeping our own chain of command and protecting their lands. We had the guns, but they had the numbers and their rabid mobs could wipe us out”.

He lit another cigarette and went on, seeming quite pleased with us as an audience for his story telling.

“See this star here”, pointing at his chest, “it’s a seven. Only priests rate higher. And all my men rate at least a five. So we get more rations and privileges than most people. And most important we got to keep our bases, our quarters in this area and others. We get flash inspections by the Church priests. They outrank us and can order or change anything they want. But they don’t interfere much, only in minor details, ordering this or that to be painted white, or making sure we pray exactly in formation, like they do at five, before mess hall.

You see, they really don’t know how we operate, so they don’t change our own ranks or ways of doing things. We just have to hide a few items like cigarettes and booze when they arrive. But our outlooks see them coming, so that’s easy. They have no books, no intelligence in military affairs. That one blank book they carry around is a piece of shit. It tells them nothing”.

I was surprised at this openness and the slur. It told me there were some real problems in the Church’s semblance of control., like in a time of revolution when anything can change in an instant. Only in little matters, like wearing the right colored bandanna, now white, keeps you safe.

“The one thing they do is issue us big orders, the overall plan, and leave it up to us to carry out.

“I’ll give you some examples. At first, when our numbers were way down, they told us to merge all our forces, Navy, Marine, Air Force. That was easy, because there were no more planes in the air or battleships with anything to do. We all became sort of ‘Army’. We took in the National Guard too, the few who were left. The police they kept for themselves as a sort of personal guard, standing around their church doors at night and well fed.

“The problems began when they let loose the mobs to destroy all technology. In the first few weeks they gained so many converts they were happy to just let them have at it. But then a few of the wiser heads in control realized that we’d still need guns to protect them and assigned us the job of stockpiling weapons and ammo in our own secret bunkers. A few days later they took me, as I was already advanced to captain, to a basement full of the latest hospital equipment.

“We were told to transport this and all the doctors, dentists and scientists to our most remote base, keep them prisoners, feed them, but also treat them well, keep them happy and most of all, secret, out of sight. It took fleets of trucks, but we did it in just a few days. They realized, almost too late, that technology and small hospitals could be useful to them, most of them sick, old men.

“These orders issued out of New York. The phones were still up and we executed these tasks, asking the set of doctors and scientists who holed up in a basement at Harvard what they’d need.

"These guys were mostly young and specialists in their fields. The other professors had been killed the night they allowed the mobs to burn down the university buildings. But the police kept a few parts off limits to this rampage. So we loaded them up at night and brought them here along with the truckloads of equipment they asked for.

"Then New York sent emissaries to all the cities along the Atlantic seaboard, Washington, Savannah, Miami, to oversee these operations.

"But here’s where the quagmire began. We had a lab here, intact, hidden in a college basement and some of the scientists we rescued told us they were close to a vaccine. We transferred that whole setup here to our safest base and told our Bishop in charge after the fact. He said ‘good job’ but told us to keep this top secret, which we did. It’s right here in Manchester our furthest and largest outpost. The town was evacuated by then.

"A week later the emissary from New York arrived and told our leader those orders were rescinded. All technology was to be destroyed and all scientists shot. If anyone of rank wanted a tooth pulled or an ailment fixed, he’d have to travel to New York and get permission from the honchos there. They wanted to centralize power and they did, or so they thought.

"Our Bishop kept this lab under wraps. He had a different view. We shot a whole lineup of older nobodies dressed up like professionals right in front of the emissary just for show. But the younger doctors and university brains, who were rounded up first thing, we dressed in our own uniforms as common soldiers and kept them on base safe and sound, in special details, out of the line of fire. My secretary holds two P.H.D’ s, one in chemistry and another in end...something or other. We have a whole slew of these brainiacs here. Only our Bishop knows about it, and our own soldiers of course. But we get along fine and hate the Church. They help us out with any medical requests, and after a few toothaches and sprains fixed, we consider ourselves lucky to have them.

"It took a full year, but they did come up with the cure and all the priests here and army personnel were administered a pill. It worked miracles, even curing those who had serious bouts and expected to die. Our one sister city to the North, Portland, was also vaccinated, the whole town, as they only numbered five thousand by then, and this little team of scientists could produce thousands of pills each week. We started stockpiling.

"But our Bishop faced a hard choice. He'd directly countermanded the Church leaders. He took the pill himself and all his priests, even his police. And if he inoculated everyone here word would surely get out. But so many were dying still, hundreds each year, that he went ahead and ordered it, in true Christian spirit. That’s why we still number forty thousand, almost the same as a year ago.

"Then rumors spread to New York through the fishermen trolling the coastline, pulling alongside their mates in boats from the south. They shared the pills with these fishermen for half their day's catch. And these ragged seamen, a little smarter than our boys, found a flock of formerly rich people coming out of the woodwork, so to speak, eager to trade diamonds as big as the pills.

Then more rumors spread. Some people started heading north on foot, for the miracle cure. This infuriated the Church elders when they should have been overjoyed at such news. The Church excommunicated us. They declared war and set up a no man’s land, right across Connecticut. They still numbered two hundred thousand and could field an army five times larger than ours. We put all our defenses along our side of the zone, Portland joining us with a thousand men at arms, all they could conscript.

"I remember the fear back then. We dug trenches and put up barbed wire and lookout posts for months. But they didn’t attack and their leaders condemned the vaccine as an unholy lie. They were a bunch of stubborn knuckleheads thinking we’d take over and they’d lose control over their own flock once vaccinated, free to roam anywhere. We sent them not a single pill, unless they agreed to let their whole population be vaccinated. And they refused.

Of course, a few of their spies, or so-called emissaries, snuck through by boat on the pretense of a parley, with nothing resolved, except they went home from their contacts here with pockets full of pills for themselves and their superiors.

"That’s when they tightened control over all the cities to the South. Those people hadn’t heard because by now the lines were down. Something happened with the satellites that put them all out of commission. We think it was the Russians or Chinese. But nobody knows”. He said this with a sigh, and another deep sip of wine.

I’d pulled the last bottle from Nancy’s purse, and we were just starting on it. This was far too interesting a conversation to let flag. Nancy knew this too and kept plying him with crackers spread with a fine Brie, slicing it from a ball that had only grown finer with age. It was the one item left, only because the other soldiers didn’t know what it was and ignored it. But she’d lean forward and hand him another cracker every few minutes, as if he was a parrot, and in a way he was. He’d thank her and remark: “Man these are good. They sure go well with the wine”.

Then he resumed where he left off, starting to get a little off course. But everything he said was a fascinating clue, a piece of the puzzle, a foggy, incomplete picture of the present state of our world.

“Nobody knows anything. All those plans agreed upon at the World convention, the tanker ships crossing the oceans, sharing food and supplies with everyone, one unified Church, that all went to hell within a year, as soon as the communications started failing.

“We don’t know anything except that there are a whole bunch of wars raging over there too. But our Cardinal in New York, and in charge, had his minions go South by land and spread lies, that we were a schism, a rebel group bent on attacking them, that we’d made peace with the inlanders and joined forces with irreligious outlaws”.

“If they’d attacked us right away, they would have won. But they didn’t. They lost their window. That’s why I’m posted here now. I took over when Sully died. He was old and sick. That was right before the vaccine. But this is our most important base because of the vaccine center, our golden egg”.

“I don’t even rotate the posts anymore. Those soldiers you ran into were just for show. The inlanders have moved further off. I keep four hundred men on base at all times, and the rest are in lookouts to the South and East, to see if anyone’s coming our way.

“The ‘no man’s land’ is still out there. They could have easily outnumbered us at first and still might, if they gather all the forces from the southern cities. But they’ve had setback after setback with that plan. The southern cities never sent a force. They had their own problems and were never told what they were fighting for.

“There used to be constant incursions from the interior, a real threat at first, groups of fifty or a hundred, armed men that would steal in at night and search buildings for supplies, then sneak off before dawn. But with our patrols, the gunfights and the disease, they quit. There were too many losses on their side. They retired inland and now I sit here with almost nothing to do.

“They’ve kept me here with my two hundred men in outposts and another four hundred at base, six hundred men at arms, battalion ‘A’. And I’m their General. I would have been a lieutenant with such a small force five years ago.

“Come to think of it, I was. But I rose quickly with the Pandemic, had to, all my superiors dying”.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, the sea lanes are gone. There are pirates now who somehow got hold of a few battle cruisers and they roam and plunder, scaring even the fishermen.

“That’s what stopped the Cardinal from amassing the army he wanted, with forces from the South. He probably wanted our lab too and be all-powerful.

“So we sit and wait but we’re winning every day, thanks to the Pandemic. We hear New York is down another eighty thousand, the same everywhere else. We’ve already pulled a quarter of the men covering the zone. I think, if we don’t get attacked soon, the whole world will die and in five years we’ll walk out of here and face no one. The planet will be ours”.

I could hardly believe this crazy story.

“Why don’t people cooperate in these dire times? Why didn’t they accept the vaccines and give them to everyone”?

“Well that’s just it” he said, “When hard times hit everyone becomes your enemy, lying and fighting over the smallest crumbs and killing each other. It’s just human nature, I guess”.

The sergeant came back again. He’d come once before but was sent away, the general telling him he wasn’t done talking yet. But now it was late and he’d finished off his bottle and mine. I sacrificed it to keep him talking. It was well worth it.

I had plenty to think about that night. The sergeant showed us by lantern to an empty room with two cots. We pulled them together and held hands.

“What a lucky encounter this was", I whispered to Nancy. "Things couldn’t have worked out better. If they do have a hospital facility here and some good doctors, as he claimed, you’ll have your leg fixed and we can go home.”

“Thank you so much” she said, “for taking this risk for me. I love you completely.

“But remember, if they do put me in shunts, I’ll be bedridden here for at least a month and unable to be moved. It’s no simple operation. I’ve seen it done. Maybe he can hide you in an army uniform. But he already said he wants you to meet the bishop. I hope they don’t try to use you like some pawn”.

Her last words were beginning to slur. The room was pitch dark. She gave me a kiss and fell asleep.

I stayed awake another hour, wondering what cards I had to play, or if I had any. Maybe I was just that, a pawn, ready to be cast into any role they chose, or any game, at gunpoint.

The one thing that baffled me was this stalemate. It seemed insane when so many were dying and the cure was right here. But the General seemed to be part of it too, as he admitted, just sitting and waiting, doing nothing with his army.

He thought his force was too small. There had to be ways to remedy that. There had to be reasonable people out there, to the south, and he could buy allies in droves with the pill.

But he sat here without a plan, enjoying my wine, happy to get a few cigarettes. I could imagine him sitting there a year from now, with another tenth of the world's population gone, and the same smile if another bottle came his way.

I decided I had to take action. I wanted to meet this good bishop and then drive all through the area. I had a vehicle with a half tank of gas left and more in the back. I hoped they wouldn't take that from me. I seemed to have a stature among the common soldiers here and even the General, as everyone treated me so politely, everyone I met so far.

Most of all I still had my wits, not torpid like everyone else. I had to find a chance to talk to some of these ‘brainiacs’ as he called them, next morning, then get Nancy set up and see what these scientists could do, make new allies and more importantly, plans.

“It’s brains that conquer the World” I thought, as I fell asleep.

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