Chapter summary: "This is John kkkronnor. We are at war. Whatever you do, do not engage the Termkkkators; they cannot be stopped by conventional weapons." Great. The first message we receive from the outside world is from a nut-case!
Static.
Static on the short-wave radio in the shelter was all we heard.
It had been two weeks now, and the generator had kicked in, finally started, so nearly the first thing we did, after the emergency lights kicked on, nearly scaring half of us to death at the sudden brightness, was to huddle around the radio.
As many of us that could. Oh, and don't you dare say the word 'shower.'
We stunk.
The makeshift latrine stunk worse.
But static was all we heard, despite various HAM radio geeks tune, tune, tuning the radio. Frustrating as hell, but what were we going to do? Smack the radio and break it?
We had a routine now, and some semblance of order. The food locker and water reserve was guarded 24/7, as near as we could make out time, and guards had first pick of whatever was rationed for that day.
One meal a day, dry/powdered this or canned that.
And just sip-sip-sips of water.
As little as we had, there was just too many of us, and not enough supplies, and we all watched us carving into our own lifelines. We were eating hardly anything, but we saw our eating as a ticking time-bomb when one day, not too far away, when there would be no more supplies to eat.
But what were we going to do? Not eat?
Alicia didn't.
She would line up, like all of us, get her ration, and give it to me.
I refused, of course!
"Alicia," I scolded, "you need to eat!"
She just shook her head and patted my belly.
"You're as important to the future, our future, as my baby!" I said.
We had onlookers. People with hungry-hungry eyes.
"Look," another child said, "if neither of you want those rats, then ..."
Alicia glared at her, then placed her rations, her 'rats,' by my side, then she got up, and left me.
Everybody was staring at me, and at my food.
The food. Alicia's.
I was so, so hungry.
I turned into the wall and hid my face as I ate, feeling terrible as I did so, wracked not with the sickness, but with guilt. I was eating Alicia's food, there were other hungry people.
But I ate. I was feeding two, I justified to myself.
My justification made the wretched food taste worse, if that were at all possible.
...
"Alicia, no!" I said, and picked up the food and forced it into her hand.
She shook her head.
She looked like she was going to get the sickness. She was so pale, and she was cold, all the time, and I had not seen her eat or drink. Was she checking out? Was there no more point for her? But why give up now? We were safe in the shelter, we had food. She made it in, so why was she checking out?
Why was she giving up on me?
She tried to push the food back into my hand.
"If you don't eat, and right now," I hissed, "I'm going to give this to someone who will."
That stopped her. Her eyes were a penetrating blue, and they gazed at me steadily, not looking at the other people in the shelter.
Alicia was an unloved child. Was she abused? I don't know, but I do know that nobody else liked her.
And her opinion of them was pretty clear, too. It's not like she didn't like them, it's just that she just didn't care.
She didn't care about anybody or anything; she just was in her own little world.
Which was kind of arrogant, given that there were hundreds (?) of us stuffed in the shelter that could accommodate several thousand people, but still, privacy was a thing of the past when all the space you had was your spot on the floor, and that was it.
You could lose yourself in Alicia's eyes, and sometimes I did, because when I looked at her, she didn't look away, eventually, like other people, she just looked and looked and looked right back at you, and you had to remind yourself to swallow, even though your mouth was cotton dry.
Those eyes glared at me, daring me to do just that, but, I don't know, maybe wondering if I would do just that. I would. If Alicia was going to go hungry, then so was I, and so was my baby.
I was that pissed now.
Alicia took the food back, peeled back the wrapper of something that was like a Clif's bar, if Clif's bars tasted like sawdust and then she took a little, tiny bite of it.
Then she immediately shoved it into my hands, and stalked away, her posture erect, as it always was, her pride and anger evident for all to see.
I just stood there, stunned, then furious. That little ...
My hand started to crush the foodbar in my hand.
"So, uh," one of the adults cleared his throat. He was the school principal or vice-principal or somebody up in the administration, so that made him somebody, "are you gonna eat that, or ..."
I stalked off myself, taking a big bite of the bar, nearly choking on it as I chewed.
Alicia wasn't all that young. She was nearly my height. I wasn't an amazon at 5'4" but, so, still! Alicia was a school girl, and I was a college graduate. I was married. She could not just go around giving me that kind of attitude. Who did she think she was?
If we were back in Tennessee, that kind of behavior would have had me put her over my knee until she learned her lesson, because if I didn't do that, my mother would have put me over her knee until I learned how to discipline children I was responsible for.
But this was Connecticut, and I heard they send you to jail for even thinking the word 'corporal punishment.'
Except this was Connecticut, post-apocalypse, and this fallout shelter was prison, and we were all prisoners now.
I ate Alicia's protein bar and could barely swallow what I chewed: there was a huge, angry lump in my throat, and I ate it too fast in my anger.
I swear to God, that kid was going to get it! I thought angrily to myself as I ...
"Hey, hey, hey!" I heard from across the shelter. "Hey! Somebody's on the shortwave! Hey! There's somebody on the ..."
People thundered to the ops area, running past me and I turned, surprised myself, and saw the mob swarm around the retaining wall separating the precious equipment from the mass of humanity it kept alive, and now, in contact with help.
I pushed my way through the crowd as best I could. The crowd was full of nervous energy — there was somebody else out there! — but at the same time hushed and still, listening for every word.
It was like a broadcast message, but unlike the emotionless voice of 'This is the emergency broadcast system' recording, this voice was filled with passion and life. And static. About every third word came through.
"This is kkrk Connor. If you're listekkr to this kkkth, you are the Resikkrnce. Listen carekkrlly. What I am going to be saykkkr to you may sound crazy, but it's true, so tthttk me, and live, or don't and die. The machkks hakkrr takkkrssssz. They hakkr organized an attakkk to wipe us oukkr. The most important thing forrzzmmwou to do is stay alive, stay kkvztdden and stay supplied. Do not, I rkkkteat, do not engage the enemy. The Tkkkators can only be damaged by their own tkkk; if you dooawwkk have their weapzzz, you are committing suicide by zzkkthththhh. And if you do havkkkzz thhhh mmmm-mmmm-mmm fffffthzzk. This is John Cozzzkk kkk thhh at war, but it is a war wzzz will win. Be strong for each otthzzr. John Connor, out."
Silence.
Then someone in the crowd said quietly. "Oh, my God. The first transmission we get, and it's from a survivalist nut-case?"
Then the whole crowd erupted in bedlam. Speculations, accusations, counteraccusations, 'this is what we need to do's, calls for calm.
I looked around, and spotted Alicia. She wasn't in the angry crowd, mob, almost, that I was pulling myself away from. I knew the only thing that would come out of talk like this was panic and maybe fighting. Let the crowd hurt the people in the crowd: but I had a baby to take care of.
Two babies.
Alicia was separate from the crowd, and she was obviously sulking, angry at me, I bet, for wanting her to eat something, for God's sake. She wasn't swept up by the emotion of the crowd at all, stunned that we received a message, nor stunned by what the message said, whatever it said through the static. She was just so wrapped up in her own teenaged world that she just didn't care. She lacked the perspective of what was important: her life, and what wasn't, like an imagined slight she deigned to sulk over.
I made my way toward her. She saw me. She watched me approach her.
Alicia was ...
Alicia was stunning. Thin. Malnourished. Stunning blue eyes. White, white, smooth white skin, clear of any acne, which was pretty amazing given our cramped conditions here. She had long, jet-black hair, and, if there were any criticism, it was that her hair lacked body. She was underdeveloped for her age, I guessed, but when she filled out, she would be quite the catch for any man who had eyes in his head to see her.
And albeit on the thin side, she had a poise that belied her age: both her movements and her stillness were purposeful and powerful, but also, at the same time, graceful.
She was such a willful child, but at the same time, she had the wisdom of one thousand years in her soul.
Me, on the other hand. Eh. Hic. Country girl from Tennessee. And Polish girls? Some of us are strikingly blond-haired-blue-eyed-beautiful, and some of us ... aren't.
Plain-Jane is what I should have been named, for my dun-colored hair and my dun-colored eyes, and grace? beauty? God gave those to Alicia, not me. When I walked, I lumped from A to B.
And never mind the bowling ball I was carrying around in my tummy. I felt bloated and ugly, and I never knew what Vic saw in me, but was grateful for what he saw.
Maybe he saw I had a head on my shoulders, because in my family, while he was fine with anything, I got things done.
Yeah, I'm the proverbial Proverbs 31 wife. A good Christian woman to have around the house.
A practical woman.
Well, somebody had to be, so I guess it had to be me.
I came up to Alicia.
"Hey," I said, rapprochement in my voice, "I saved you half the food-bar," and I extended it to her, the bar sticking out of the wrapper.
Alicia, slouched against the wall (looking like a God-damn supermodel striking a pose doing it, I noted), accepted the peace offering (that I had to work really hard to stop myself from finishing off, I'll have you know), wrapped the bar and put it by her side.
I blew out the air between my lips in a long-suffering sigh and slunk, ungainly, down by her side.
"Oof!" I exclaimed as I fell the last two inches to the floor. I still wasn't used to carrying around an extra little person inside me, and all my movements now were becoming harder and clumsier, and I hated it. I landed hard on the floor. That hurt. It would have hurt more if I didn't have as much padding on my backside as I did. I wasn't a lard butt. I kept myself in good shape.
But I did like to snack a bit. Now and then.
Alicia look at me, becoming unlost from her own little sulky world, at that.
"'mokay," I reassured her.
She went back to her world.
"You hear that?" I asked, nodding across the shelter to the radio room and the angry crowd, now shouting at each other.
Alicia shrugged carelessly.
I wanted to say more. I wanted to say, "Jesus, that was some crazy shit!" but Alicia's (more than usual) sullenness just zapped the energy out of me, and made me a bit pissy myself.
I sighed and pulled her into me. She didn't need to hear about this crazy shit, she needed an anchor, and here I was, Mrs. Anchor.
She had grown used to me pulling her into me, my mothering, these past few weeks. She liked to pretend she was distant from it all, that she didn't care, but I knew she needed this, even though she was really good at appearing like she didn't. I knew better. She was cold and distant because she was never loved. I could relate. I grew up in a very pragmatic, very ... how do I say it? ... utilitarian environment. My dad died in the mines, and my mom raised all four of us with a will of iron. She made do, she put food on the table and made sure we got to school and stayed in school, and worked herself to exhaustion every day doing it. She loved us. That's why she did it. She just never ... expressed it.
I was going to make up for that. My family? Well, I would make it work. I would be the rock, just as my mother was for me and my brothers, but my children would know they were loved. Alicia didn't know she was loved, but she damned well was gonna, if I had any say in the matter.
And I did. I was my mother's daughter, and come hell or high water or ... fucking nuclear apocalypse, this poor little waif of a girl would know that she was loved by somebody, by me, and not because she had to do something to deserve it, but because, by God, she was a child of God, and somehow God had put her next to me in this hellhole, and that was good enough for me.
"You really need to eat more, Alicia," I worried at her.
I could almost feel Alicia fight to swallow her little self-righteous angry sigh. She made to get up and stalk away, but my grip on her shoulder tightened.
"Nyah-uh," I said bossily, "you're staying here with me. I don't want you getting hurt by getting lost in that mob!"
At this, Alicia did sigh, as if to say she could handle herself well enough, mob-or-no-mob, and maybe she could, but I wasn't letting her go, so she could just drag me around the shelter if she wanted to stomp off, and ha-ha, wouldn't that be a sight: I probably weighed twice she did, the wee skin-and-bones.
Vic was black Irish. I had a feeling Alicia was too. The Irish are all boiling passion beneath the surface.
I wonder if her parents were like that, like ... abusive to her? All sullen, like she was now, and then just lashing out violently? Was that why she was closed off from the rest of the world? Because the world just hurt her whenever she looked outside herself?
It was my job to show her that this little part of the world, me, that is, was different. I knew these things took time, more than weeks, maybe more than years.
I promised myself I would take that time. If I could just save one ... fucking ... soul from this hell-on-earth, then ... then I knew I could stand before God unashamed when my time came, because I had done what he wanted me to do, which was just to make one person's life worth living, even if she thought it wasn't.
"Sweetie, I'm tired," I sighed, then yawned big, and then I blushed, embarrassed at my display. But I wasn't embarrassed enough not to rest my head on her bony little shoulder and nod off.
"'Nite, 'Licia," I said.
And did I say, 'love you'? I don't remember. I was already asleep.
A/N: Caroline's got her bossy-mommy pants on, I'm thinkin' ;)
So I promised ultraviolence, but instead you got the John-Connor-cryptic message from me. Hey, you know me: I'm all about the slow buuuurrnnnnn... Oh. Yeah!
It's all in the setup, and even if it isn't then, well: deal.
:p