John drew the sheet back. No matter how many times he had seen the face of death, it still struck at him. It was said that pneumonia was “the old man’s quiet friend,” but it was obvious that the final hours must have been a terrible struggle; the man’s face was contorted, eyes still open, features ashen gray.
“I’m sorry. I should have taken care of him, washed and laid him out proper before I let you in here,” the elderly woman escorting him whispered, and she reached over with gentle fingers to close the dead man’s eyes and tried to wipe away the grimace, though rigor mortis had already set in.
“I know this man.” John sighed, gazing intently. “I remember him from the War College. I think he was on my friend’s staff.”
John pulled up a chair and sat down as Forrest and Lee came into the room.
“I knew him,” John said again, “not well, just one of those staff types always standing a few feet behind and to the side of a general.”
He struggled to dredge up more of a memory. The world before the Day was filled with so many memories, so many of them now hazy, distorted, washed over and replaced by the trauma of the last three years. The dead man before him was one of thousands of memories. Perhaps they had sat in on a conference together, maybe shared a drink with others. Wasn’t there a military history conference at the War College where he had given a lecture?
If so, it wasn’t noteworthy enough to remember right now, and that in itself struck him as tragic. Another life had disappeared; who and what he was John could barely remember. Did he have a family still alive that treasured him and would want to know his fate?
“Did he have any papers, military ID, anything like that on him?”
Forrest shook his head. “No wallet, nothing. The guy was pretty well beaten up when we found him, muttered something about getting jumped by marauders on the far side of the pass for Interstate 26.”
“He had several busted ribs, a lot of bruises, cracked jaw, and nearly out of his head when Forrest brought him in,” the old woman said, and as she spoke, she gently reached out to smooth the man’s hair back from his forehead, a maternal gesture that touched John.
“Janet here was a nurse; you remember her sister Maggie, who took care of you when you first came to visit us?” Forrest said.
Visit. John smiled at that. When he was captured, with a busted rib as well, Maggie was the first person to show him sympathy. Maggie was gone, killed in the air strike back in the spring.
“Your sister was an angel,” John said, “and thank you for seeing to this man. Did he say anything to you about how he got here and why?”
“Not much I could understand. He kept asking for you, sir. Said he had served with a friend of yours—Bob Scales.”
There was a sudden leap of hope. On the Day, John had actually been talking to Bob, who had called because it was Jennifer’s twelfth birthday. In the final seconds of that conversation, Bob began to cut the friendly chat short, his tone changing, saying, “Something is going on here,” and then the connection went dead.
For nearly three years now, he’d wondered what had happened to his old friend. Was he still alive? Did the man lying on the cot know the answer, and perhaps even more important, why had he come here?
“Had served with Bob Scales”—and John hesitated—“or was now serving?”
“I’m sorry, sir; he kept drifting in and out.”
“Janet, it’s John, please. Now try to remember everything he said.”
Forrest left the room and returned a moment later carrying a couple of folding chairs, deftly opening them.
“Could we leave the room?” Lee whispered. John looked back at his friend and could see that Lee, with a stomach even weaker than his, was getting queasy.
Janet nodded in agreement and drew the sheet back over the body, and Forrest motioned for them to head into another room. The three men stripped off their winter gear, Janet coming in a few minutes later bearing four cups of coffee, black.
“I’m sorry, but I gotta ask, and hope I’m not being impolite,” Lee said. “You guys always have coffee. How?”
Janet looked over at Forrest, who, in spite of the gravity of the moment, actually chuckled.
“I always said don’t ask, don’t tell, but this time? Okay, I’ll spill. We found an abandoned truck, gone off a ravine up near that rich folks’ resort you keep wanting me to move into. The dang truck was loaded with cases of these K-Cups, cases of them. Sorry, I kind of forgot to tell you about it.”
There was a tense moment of silence. There was an understanding among all that “finds” that could help the entire community should be shared. But it was not mandatory; the few who had tried to press the issue as an actual statute once the initial state of martial law was over with were denounced as thinking like commissars. Medical supplies, a truckload of preserved meat or canned fruit that children needed, and such were one thing, but tens of thousands of K-Cups?
“Finders keepers,” John finally replied, and Forrest visibly relaxed.
“Sorry, John. There were half a hundred cartons of high-class cigarettes in there as well.”
“Don’t even mention those,” John replied sharply, not even wishing to contemplate his struggle with that addiction that still haunted him, for like nearly all ex-smokers, years could pass and yet still the urge to try “just one” could hit. The only thing that kept him straight was his promise to Jennifer.
John looked over at Janet, who was sipping her coffee.
“Try to sort through it all, even the trivial, which might be really important.”
“Like I said, he was brought in here badly beaten up, half-frozen to death, frostbite to fingers and toes; if he had survived, he might have lost those anyhow. Three ribs staved in—wonder that his lung wasn’t punctured; that injury was certainly no help when it came to the pneumonia already setting in—cracked jaw as well, which made it even harder for him to talk and understand what he was saying. Fever was up over 102 when I got to him, no way to check blood oxygen level, but I could tell it was dropping. I was praying you’d get back with some antibiotics, but by last evening, I knew he was over the edge. He slipped into a coma and died at around midnight.”
“What exactly did he say?” John asked, pressing for something, anything.
“He came somewhat clear for a brief period just before slipping into a coma; I’ve seen that happen before. Said to tell you that you’ve got to get to General Scales up in Roanoke and stop them.” She hesitated, looking to the door as if to make sure no one else was listening. “He said, ‘EMP might be on the table.’”
“What? Were those his exact words?”
“‘EMP is on the table,’” Janet said.
“Whose table?” John interjected, leaning forward, eager for an answer.
“He never said who, what, or when. Was he remembering how the war started, talking about now or the future? I kept trying to gently prod him when he was conscious, but like I said, he was feverish and pretty well out of his head when he was brought in. I think if he had been out in the open even a few more hours he’d have died from exposure and would be lying under the snow rather than in the next room.”
John wearily shook his head and sipped his coffee. “Anything else? Please try to remember his precise words, ma’am.”
“Just that you, John, had to get to a General Scales.”
“Was he talking like General Scales was a memory from the past? I think I recognize Quentin. We might have served together while at the War College. Was he talking like that, rambling about our past or that I had to see him now?”