After the Pandemic: Setting Things Right (701 hits)
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Submitted by X54 (View user info) at 2008-09-22 11:55:32 EDT
When Colonel Barnes and his men arrived I thought I was a goner. He asked to see Mr. Umeda, the man whose house I'd occupied. I said he was unavailable. The colonel glanced at the bodies stacked over by the garage. I'd grown tired of burying them all, figuring they'd be taken for victims of the virus anyway. But watching the colonel, I saw them through his eyes: riddled with bullet holes. Gaping machete wounds. Not the symptoms one usually associates with the virus. I wondered whether the colonel might recognize Mr. Umeda himself and I thought in hindsight how much smarter it would have been to admit I didn't know him. But I'd grown fond of his secluded mansion in the hills with its own solar power and the magnificent vista of Los Angeles and I couldn't bring myself to let on I didn't belong there.
"Did you know Mr. Umeda was an attorney?" said the colonel.
"Yes," I said, recalling all the law books inside.
He nodded and lit a cigarette. I mentally cringed as it dawned on me he'd referred to Mr. Umeda in the past tense. Some liar I am. That's when I noticed the full bird insignia on his cap.
"What are you going to do?" he said.
"I ain't going to do nothing, Colonel." I clicked my shotgun's safety off. "Unless somebody forces me to."
He looked a little surprised that I'd recognized his rank. "You ex-military?"
I nodded grimly, thought about racking the slide for emphasis. But I already had a live one in the chamber.
"So," he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "You ain't going to do nothing. Unless somebody forces you to. That's a hell of an attitude, Soldier."
"I ain't no soldier no more. And I ain't bothering nobody."
He surveyed the Umeda family as if to solicit their opinions on that last point, but the only response came from the buzzing swarm of flies. As I imagined swinging my shotgun up and letting him have ten or twenty doubleought pellets, he flicked his half smoked cigarette away as if it suddenly disgusted him. "A man's hardly a man if he don't have a function in life."
"Is that right?"
"What do you think's going to happen now?" He gazed down on the City of Angels, crystal clear in the distance except for a few distinct columns of dark smoke.
I looked more closely at his men. They wore an assortment of different uniforms, carried a variety of different weapons, rode in a rag-tag collection of different vehicles, military and civilian. "That depends on you all." My finger tensed on the trigger. "Nothing has to happen."
He shook his head. "Not right here. I mean in the bigger picture. What do you think's going to become of this country?"
"That don't confront me."
"It don't 'confront' you? Well, it must of 'confronted' you at some point, Soldier."
He was right. But that was a long time ago.
"Most people think the pandemic was the worst thing ever happened to us. You concur with that?"
I snorted. "Well, they say it killed nine out of ten people in this country alone. Probably a lot more in other places. Everything's all fucked up now. I'd say it pretty much ruined us."
"I disagree," he said, sharply. "I'd say this country was ruined before then. I'd say it was already ruined by greedy bastards who took the ideals this country was founded on and twisted them all around to suit their own purposes. Self serving bloodsuckers who didn't give a fuck about America or anything at all for that matter except their own personal gain. Liars and cheats and lowdown sons of bitches who'd slit their own mothers' throats if they thought there was something in it for them. Leeches and parasites who didn't give a flying fuck about anyone but their own damn selves." He held up a sheaf of papers. "You know what this is? It's a list from the California BAR association with the names and addresses of all the lawyers in this state, and all the judges as well. We aim to pay each and every one of them bastards a visit, to find the one in ten the virus missed. Mr. Umeda included. Except it appears you beat us to him."
He stood looking at me for a long while and I thought about that. "We aim to set things right," he said at last. "We aim to make sure none of them sons of bitches ever come crawling back out of their holes once we get things fixed up again." He shook his head. "But I guess you ain't planning on doing nothing. The future of your country don't 'confront' you." He lowered the papers with a smack against his thigh and turned away.
He strode back to his olive drab Suburban. I watched the Stars and Stripes he and his men had attached to their antennas flutter in the breeze. As he opened the door I called, "Colonel."
He turned.
"Will you give me minute to collect my gear?"
He nodded. "Make it quick, Soldier. Daylight's burning."
"Yes Sir," I said.
And that's how I came to join up with Colonel Barnes and his men to help set things right.
User Reviews
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2008-10-01 16:01:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2008-09-22 23:44:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
meh
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2008-09-22 20:21:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
moderately not without merrit.
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-09-22 18:55:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Statistic: New Jersey has more toxic waste dumps per capita than any other state in the Union. California, on the other hand, has more lawyers per capita than any other state.
Question: Why?
Answer: New Jersey got first pick.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-09-22 15:24:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Funny how people who don't agree with your politics will take exception to certain things in a work of fiction...
From 'After the Pandemic: Variant C,' one of the very first Pandemic stories posted.
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61350
"D Squads and resistance cells are made up of mostly of blue-collar workers. Cops, who know the neighborhoods and are fighting to get them back. Soldiers, still fighting the good fight, fighting an invader on American soil for the first time in over two hundred years. Truckers who are our lifelines, risking their lives to keep the underground trade in food and fuel and weapons running steady. Dock workers. Farmers. Electricians. Plumbers.
We have most of the nurses. They have most of the doctors.
The vampires are on the verge of taking over everything. They have the scientists, the lab techs, the computer programmers. The politicians, the lawyers, the university professors.
They have the architects. We have the engineers.
They have the ones who did more thinking than physical work, and now that they have all the vampire advantages, speed, strength, and incredible powers of recovery.
We are the hardware. They are the software.
We have the ones who have always made do working up a good sweat, and it's a struggle for us to buckle down and try and out-think these bloodsuckers.
Submitted by Squirrelly_Girl (user info) at 2008-09-22 14:54:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
This was kinda boring... but then again I did just take 2 Ambien.
Submitted by whiskey_jack (user info) at 2008-09-22 14:54:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by sandmantate (user info) at 2008-09-22 12:41:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-09-22 12:15:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Lawyer below.
Submitted by woolfe (user info) at 2008-09-22 12:13:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
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