“They had something they didn’t want you to see.”
“I heard what they had… in the back. I heard someone coughing.”
“Someone from New Post?”
“How should I know?”
“Well why else would they want to keep it a secret?”
“They have plenty of people already,” Graham said. “I’ve heard the Walkers have over three hundred indentures working for them.”
“Bullshit. Where the hell would they find three hundred idiots dumb enough to sign their lives away?”
“From all over the district. Even further. They may have brought people over from as far away as Kapuskasing.”
“I doubt Stems is pleased about Walker taking people from his fancy new nation.”
“Justin told me that they’re hoping to start exporting food to Souls of Flesh in Timmins… or down to Sudbury, even.”
“That’ll give them some powerful friends,” I said.
“Yeah. All on the back of their indentures. The world’s starting to look like the middle ages again. Manors and serfs. Well, worse, really.”
“Then I guess it’s no surprise Livingston’s in the middle of it. He couldn’t find any more babies to kill, so now he’s turned to slave trading.”
“A little harsh. You know it was an accident.”
“He killed those people, Graham. Led them out into the middle of nowhere and let them burn. You can call that criminal negligence or whatever you want, but they’re still dead because of that asshole. And I’m not about to forget that.”
Graham shook his head. “I don’t know what happened on that road, and I don’t know how Livingston could have made it out alive if everyone else was killed by the fires. But believe me… I could tell that Livingston’s not the one to worry about. It’s Dave Walker’s show… all the way.”
“Then they should both have their throats slit.”
“Yeah, whatever… I just want to get home and have dinner. Apologizing for you has made me pretty hungry.”
“You didn’t apologize―”
“I’m kidding.” He gave me a laboured sigh, before turning to stare off toward a line of trees at the side of the road, his headlamp bouncing against the fir needles.
We passed through the gate, Graham hopping off to let us through.
“We’re so late I think we’ll both go hungry,” Graham said as he retook the seat beside me.
“Oh, they’ll keep dinner warm for me,” I said as I pulled off my helmet. “I’m the motherfucking king.”
Graham laughed even though I’m sure he didn’t want to. “You still need to fix this. I’m not just talking about Livingston. You’re not making any friends with the Walkers on this.”
“Dave Walker probably doesn’t like me pointing out that he’s a coward and a thief.”
“I don’t know why these imaginary boundaries are so important to you. We go scavenging all the time in Cochrane, yet somehow you think you have a right to everything within ten miles of our place. I wonder what the guys at New Post think of these rules of yours.”
“I know we can’t enforce it. Not a hundred percent. But we’re not like everyone else; you and I are outsiders here and that makes a big difference. We need that buffer to show these people we can’t be pushed around.”
“You know what we need? We need to keep some allies around here. No one’s going to put up with us if you keep shooting out tires.”
“Don’t fret. We’ll drop off a nice bottle of booze for the Walkers at Christmas. That should smooth things over a little.”
“I frickin’ hope so.”
“Buck up, sugarpie,” I said with a grin.
“You think that’s funny? You know… I’m getting really sick of this.”
“Sick of what, exactly?”
“You’re out of control, Baptiste. Making threats, shooting at people…”
“Fuck, Graham… I didn’t shoot at anybody.”
“Seriously?”
“I needed to show them that they can’t push us around.”
“You didn’t need to do anything. You want people to think you’re tough? Too late. They already know that. So maybe now you should focus on getting people to not hate your guts.”
“I don’t need any more friends.”
“You’re not going to keep any of the ones you have if you keep acting like this. Starting with me, Baptiste.”
I shook my head at him.
“I’m not joking,” he said. “I can’t trust you when you do things like that. It’s too much.”
“You’re right.” He had a point. I was already starting to realize how embarrassed I’d be if Sara were to find out how I’d acted. “I went too far… I get that. Sometimes I lose perspective on this stuff.”
“It’s a problem.”
“I know. That’s why you’re here. You balance us out, make people think we’re not so bad. That’s why we’re a team, Graham.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “That’s why I respect you.”
“Yeah… okay. Just… just tone it down, alright? I need to know I can count on you.”
“You can count on me, Graham. You should know that by now.”
“Yeah… okay.” He turned back to the trees.
I didn’t ask him not to tell anyone about the tire; I just hoped he’d only tell Lisa.
I was starting to feel the shame again.
We reached McCartney Lake a couple of minutes later. Lisa was waiting for us when we arrived.
I stopped the cart and looked over at Graham, waiting to see what was going on between them; I can’t say I wasn’t curious.
“You’re late,” she said.
Graham hopped down and walked over to her. “Blame Baptiste.”
“I always do.”
Graham gave her a hug and then a kiss. “I love you,” he said to her.
They kept kissing.
I climbed down the cart and hurried inside.
I really didn’t need to see that kind of thing right before dinner.
Today is Sunday, December 9th.
When I was growing up, so a long time ago, I used to watch all those movies about the end of the world. I stayed away from anything with zombies, partly out of respect for my father, but also because that shit is just so stupid.
But everything else was fair game.
I remember some of those movies pretty well. Most of them had Kevin Costner in them for some reason, and most of them were all kinds of suck. People would mope around starving and getting sick… that or they would just go out and murder each other. It was like those were the only two settings available for post-apocalyptic societies, sad sack or crazy-eyed killer. The end would come and civilization would drain away in an instant, people forgetting to bathe and wash their clothes, even forgetting how to use a goddamn fork at the dinner table.
None of it made any sense; I think the entire genre was just a refuge for wooden characters and plot holes you could drive a tractor-trailer through. I couldn’t get into any story where there wasn’t a plausible attempt to explain just how things got so messed up in the first place. Something more concrete than “global warming” or “monkey pox”, something that set up a little thread of how we got from normal to fucked in X number of years. You’d be surprised how rare that kind of explanation is.
But there was one movie I liked, or at least it was better than the one about the mutant with fish gills or the one where Denzel Washington carries a crime-fighting bible. It was called Testament , and while it did have a little bit of Kevin Costner in it, it didn’t suck like the others. It just made the end of the world suck.
In it the world ended with a nuclear war, and people began to die from the radiation, starting with the little kids. There weren’t any grand adventures, or bad guys on Jet Skis, or idiot-savants with homemade helicopters. There was just an endless stream of bad things happening and no way to stop them from coming no matter how hard you tried. It’s not like the main character actually has the power to fix the end of the fucking world.