“Government had me under surveillance,” Franklin said, no longer working now, just kneeling in the dark dirt and gazing off where the past remained just out of sight. “Just because I was warning people that the shit was about to hit the fan. After 9/11, Homeland Security became just about the most powerful force in Washington, because its slimy fingers reached into every pocket and every campaign fund and every Congressional bill. The last thing any government ever wants is for the truth to get out. At different times, I was considered a white supremacist, a radical Muslim, a neo-Nazi, a Communist, even a Swedish spy—if you can imagine any reason in hell that Sweden needs our secrets.”
“Were you arrested?”
“They just wanted me to go dark. Even with all these new laws that let them throw anybody in jail forever without a trial, they knew that arresting me would draw publicity, and then more people would find my websites. So in a way, me going into hiding like this was the best thing for both of us. I’m fine with being a martyr, but I want it to be for the right reason, and the right reason hadn’t come along yet.” Franklin swept his gnarled, calloused fingers to the world beyond. “And now, the right cause came along, but there ain’t no Internet left.”
Jorge remained cautious. “So you want us to help you spread the word about your survival camp? If you help us, we can help others?”
“Hell, no,” Franklin said. “It’s too late for all that. I’m not even helping you. I just couldn’t let that little girl die.”
Jorge realized the old man did have a compassionate streak beneath his wary, antisocial façade. “We are grateful and we promise to work hard while we are here, and to leave whenever you ask.”
Franklin appeared not to hear. “My granddaughter, Chelsea, was Marina’s age when she drowned.”
Jorge had a good idea of the man’s pain because of his own worries. “I am truly sorry to hear that.”
“I was working on the camp even back then, using a network of dealers to get all these solar panels, wind turbines, water tanks, and such as that. I suspect the government had their eyes on me. Hell, I didn’t know which of those things flying overhead were hawks and crows and which were surveillance drones. They got ‘em the size of insects now…well, they did, I mean.”
Jorge picked a lime-green caterpillar from a collard leaf and studied it a moment before squishing it between his fingers. “Why did they let you come here if they knew?”
“Like I said, it got me out of the spotlight. I planned to bring my family up here, but by then my wife had left me and my kids and grandkids had pretty much written me off as a crazy old coot. The ones who didn’t were my granddaughters, Rachel and Chelsea. Rachel, she’s a real Christian, acting the way Christ taught instead of the way these idiot preacher politicians are telling people they ought to behave. You a religious man?”
Jorge had learned in the United States to always say he was a Baptist, especially in the South, but he saw little reason to lie to Franklin. “I was raised Catholic, but we haven’t gone to church much lately.”
“Never hurts to believe in something bigger than you. Just make sure it’s a thing of the sky and not a thing of mankind. Because mankind isn’t bigger than any of us. Mankind is not bigger than life. It’s exactly life-sized and hates to admit it.”
Jorge was trying to figure out what that meant when Franklin went back to his story, apparently used to coming out with random musings but just as quickly, discarding them. “Rachel was the only one who didn’t think I was a survivalist wacko. She said God needed the world to end in order to renew itself as a better place, just like Jesus had to die on the cross in order to save everybody’s soul. I guess there’s some comfort in that, since all the doomsday preachers use fear as a fundraising tool. She’d even been reviving some of my old websites, putting them under different names.”
“Did she get in trouble, too?” The sun was lower in the sky now, pushing shadows across the compound.
“She’d barely got started when Chelsea died.” Franklin swallowed with the bitterness of the memory. “They were out at the lake, the two of them, and Rachel turned away just for a second—had to go use the bushes. And she came back to find Chelsea face down in the water.”
Jorge wanted to offer condolences but decided silence was more respectful and appropriate. Customs were different in the United States, but shutting up worked in any language.
“In three feet of water. But she was a good swimmer. They did it to send a message.”
“They”? Does this man really think the government would drown his granddaughter?
Franklin spat in the dirt and stood, wiping his hands and picking up the basket. “Well, that’s when I came up here. Is your wife a good cook? I’m passable, but I keep it simple.”
“She cooked for Mr. Wilcox on weekends.”
“Well, this ain’t no fancy rich-people’s food, but it’s clean and free of poison and you can really taste it. So, let’s treat it like it’s The Last Supper.”
Jorge followed Franklin back to the house, wondering if they should leave far sooner than their host might wish.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Holy crap!”
Campbell swerved his bike, narrowly missing the little kid. The front tire hit the curb and the bike flipped, pitching Campbell across the sidewalk and into the weeds along the side of the street.
Campbell had pedaled in the direction of the gunshots, figuring it was the most likely place to find Pete, and the first exit off the highway had led right past a gas station into a middle-class neighborhood. He had slowed, hoping not to get shot or attacked, but he had mentally prepared for any possibility except the one that had occurred.
His elbow throbbed and his knees were skinned, but no bones appeared to be broken. His first thought was that the kid might be a Zaphead, which would explain why he’d run out into the street toward the bike.
But the boy simply stood there, staring at Campbell, a baby doll dangling limply from one hand.
Definitely not a Zaphead, or he’d be on me while I’m down.
Campbell sat up, his shirt wet from a broken water bottle in his backpack. “Hi there,” Campbell said, in his friendliest voice, as if they were crossing paths on a playground instead of in the middle of the apocalypse.
The kid said nothing, merely hugged his doll. He looked about ten, an age when most kids were carrying baseball gloves and iPods and Gameboys instead of dolls. But he’d likely seen horrors that even the most violent video games had not displayed.
“Live around here?” Campbell asked, even though the street looked as dead as all the others he’d traveled over the last few weeks.
Had it only been a few weeks since the solar flares? The world felt as if it were covered in a great layer of dust already.
The boy’s head twitched just a little, which Campbell took for a negative shake. Campbell scanned the houses that bordered both sides of the street, vacant cars parked here and there along the curb and in the driveways, another neighborhood caught unaware when the catastrophe had struck. Human flesh was moldering and decaying behind those closed doors.
Campbell dug in his backpack and pulled out a granola bar. He unwrapped it and stood, holding it out to the boy. He felt like a parody of the stereotypical pervert, gaining a kid’s trust with a treat. “You hungry?”
The head twitched again, eyes peering warily from beneath the bill of the Carolina Panthers ball cap.
“What do you say we get away from the street?” Campbell said. “Might be some bad guys around.”
The boy’s lower lip trembled. “B-bad guys?”