“Many things, Mr. Tussard. I won’t bore you with political details. Suffice to say we do expect to be paid. Yes?”
“No,” Tussard said with finality. He struggled to rise from the gripping softness of the ripped sofa. “You’re sick. You, the government that made this mess, and all you fuckers that try to keep it going. You should just let me—us—die in peace. I have no money.”
“I’m sure you realize the extent of the food shortage at present. In addition, it’s unlikely that vegetation will resume growth for several years. We can, of course, be paid using foodstuffs as an alternate method. Cans of vegetables are going for ten to fifteen dollars apiece. Fruits are even more valuable—why, a single unit of peaches is worth almost twenty-five dollars, simply because it contains a higher vitamin C content.” Bennigan waited complacently.
“I don’t have any money to pay you. My food supply is only good for another couple of weeks, if I stretch it. And I’ll be damned if I’ll give it to you or anyone like you. There’re others that need it more, even more than me. People are dying all over this place! Don’t you even care?” Tussard realized abruptly that he was screaming. His hands had curled into fists and the oh-so-soft fingernails had sunk gently into the yielding flesh of his palms. He forced his fingers to relax; now they felt like a spoon pulling out of warm taffy.
“Nonsense, Mr. Tussard. You’re really very lucky.” Looking at Bennigan, Tussard realized with a sick certainty that the man passionately believed every word. “The citizens to the east are the hardest hit. Boston, Washington, D.C., New York—now that’s where you have the big problems. The cities are gone, of course, having sustained direct hits, but like here there are still plenty of folks left in the surrounding areas. Not only is it a concentrated area, they had to deal with the fallout that the air currents carried eastward from the rest of the country.” He shook his head sadly. “Like being hit twice, if you ask me. You’ve lost some hair and a few fingernails and think you’ve got it bad? People out there are losing fingers, hands, faces, Mr. Tussard. Which explains why we have to insist that the people in the central states remit their taxes immediately. It’s hard, I know, but they’re carrying the load for most of America, what with the new coastline in the west.” Bennigan shook his head again and gazed at Tussard. The man’s eyes resembled a hurt puppy’s and he nodded. “California… all those taxpayers, right into the ocean. You and your neighbors have been fortunate indeed.”
Tussard watched numbly as Bennigan sighed and stood up, then calmly stepped to the small, slowly fading fire that had been built on the hearth. The homeowner had been afraid to use the fireplace because of the damage to the roof and chimney, but most of the smoke escaped through another hole in the roof and at least it ate through some of the cold in the room. Tussard wished he could just crank up a space-heater, as he had in the poorer apartments of his younger days. In the short silence, Tussard could hear the gentle dripping of water from somewhere else in the house—the kitchen, maybe; the sound brought with it the soft-focus memory of a once-annoying faucet in the middle of the night. The water that dripped now was semi-deadly; he drank it anyway.
“Well, Mr. Tussard,” Bennigan said finally, “if you’re not able to pay your taxes, I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me.” In another second the agent was at his side and snapping aluminum handcuffs around his now-frail wrists; it was queer how the man could move so quickly. Tussard thought of resisting, then remembered what Bennigan had said about people out east losing fingers and hands. Beneath the heavy chill of metal, his wrists were as thin as twigs and covered with crusted-over sores. If he pulled against the metal bonds, would they snap off like the dead tree branches they so resembled?
“Come along, sir,” Bennigan said softly, taking him by the elbow. Tussard was almost surprised that the younger man would touch him, then realized Bennigan was wearing nearly invisible flesh-colored gloves. “We have to go now.”
Well, Tussard thought, this isn’t so bad. At least I’m warm. Most of the time.
He was in a prison, though where he didn’t know or particularly care. At first his thoughts had been little more than distorted electrical impulses in his brain, bouncing from point to point but never connecting. By the time his mind cleared enough for him to actually speculate on the terrible windstorms that battered periodically at the building’s walls, his curiosity was more than satisfied at his own guess that he might be in one of the plains states, such as Kansas. Beyond the fact that this was where he was, and therefore that was the way it was, he was not concerned about anything. This was his place, and he was content. It was new, it was… pristine.
Now there was a word, he thought smugly. Pristine, with a capital P. Clean and sanitary, that’s how he felt. Sterilized. And that was okay, too—it felt good to get out from under the layer of filth that had covered his skin for so long, and his sores had even healed. Some of his hair was coming back, not that anyone cared; there were no mirrors, but he could see himself vaguely in the small sinkful of water they allotted him for drinking and washing each day (he had learned early not to wash until right before the water was changed). Sometimes, if the murky yellow light that squeezed through his small thermopane window was bright enough, he could glimpse skin that was a mottled light purple on the same side as his long gone eye—the eye socket itself was now a puckered but still tender scar.
He might not look like much, but he was healthy. The American Way had come through again, sheltering him, feeding him in the hardest of times. Now he knew what he’d paid taxes for all those years, and he still owed—oh, yes. But there were other ways of paying.
Down the hall and beyond his visibility he heard the jingle of keys and the clanging of a cell door, then a babble of voices raised in argument. In the time he’d been here the pungent smell of alcohol he’d come to associate with the keysounds had never grown normal. Some inmates still protested, but not him, and when the young medical officer—a boy, probably only twenty-one and barely trained—arrived outside his cell, Tussard rolled up his sleeve without hesitation, though he couldn’t help shivering a little. No one—except maybe Bennigan—had been totally bypassed, and this doctor (was he really a doctor?) was minus an ear, though the army had allowed him to grow his hair in a style designed to draw attention away from the hole in his head.
Sometimes Tussard could tell by the color of the food-paste they gave him that he was getting back what he gave, albeit in a roundabout way. But most of the time he knew his contribution went to feed the long lines of people who gathered at the prison gates each morning with their ration stamps.
He gave a pint a week. At two hundred dollars a pint, they would let him out in a little under three and a half years, depending on the needs of his country.
Give me your weak…
Give me your hungry.
SANCTUARY
by Jeffrey Osier
The Straggler was suspiciously fat. Moisture clung to him in large, jiggling droplets that collected in sluices within the parallel folds of his flesh. He was already slapping at the Mites that crawled up his legs and shirt when he leaned over, gasping at resistant volumes of humid air, and tried to get the attention of Paul’s father.