The Zona Read online

  The Reverend turned his face to the fire.

  “What news do you bring of the world outside?”

  “Don’t you have a radioman?” Lead asked.

  “No, a radioman is too valuable to for the Church to risk on lepers and virals. We receive news from guardsmen sometimes, but most won’t come within speaking distance,” the Reverend said.

  “My news isn’t fresh. The skirmishes with the Southern Utah militias ended a couple of months ago. Guards wiped out a few of large camps. There was talk in the Flagstaff Parish of pushing the Zona border north into Utah proper,” Lead said.

  “Hopefully just talk,” the Reverend replied. “The Church would do well not to cross the border into Utah. The Mormons were one of the few groups ready for the end of the world, that being part of their belief structure and all. Soon as the Storms hit they circled up and closed off everything from Provo to Salt Lake. I’ll bet you a silver note they even got plumbing and electricity up there.”

  The Reverend rubbed his hands together and turned his face to the night.

  “South Utah militias weren’t nothing but non-Mormons. Found themselves excluded pretty quick. I’m surprised they only got put down a couple months ago.” The Reverend chuckled to himself. “I know all about Utah. I was in Las Vegas when Utah military regulars gave me this face.”

  The Reverend took his blindfold off and turned his face back to Terence and Lead. His eyes were a milky white and without pupils.

  “We were in Vegas,” Terence said.

  “Everyone was in Vegas, or a part of it,” the Reverend replied and tied the cloth back over his eyes.

  “Every man comes from his past, and often enough our lives cross paths. The world we live in was forged by the Storms, but the men who live today, those men are defined by what happened in Vegas, and I am no different.”

  Christ Church of Equality was based in a walled-off compound outside of Rancho Cucamonga, California. Reverend Richard Bell’s flock numbered one-hundred thirty, but he only really counted fifty-three. They were the producers, the money-makers, the rest of the flock were just breeders and relations. The producers canvassed six days a week, spreading the holy word and collecting the holy dollar. They brought the funds; Reverend Bell converted the funds into food, guns, boats, cars, homes, land, necessities for his flock, and luxuries for himself.

  In his heart, Reverend Bell was an atheist, a man of worldly possessions and lusts, but his words told a story quite contrary. He preached God’s love to the flock and they were happy to serve. They found order and purpose in the compound. Bell rationalized that he was providing a service, fulfilling a need to sheep who repaid him in labor and wealth. He rationalized it as being no different from any other business or religion. Anyway, the Reverend hadn’t started the Church of Equality; he had inherited it from his father, who had proclaimed Bell the next Messiah.

  Every evening Bell preached to his flock. He followed his father’s model. He spoke of the horrors of the modern world, he spoke of murder and theft and rape and war. He also made up stories; conspiracies of the government and how powers behind powers were trying to control the flock or destroy them. The flock readily believed, for it is easy to believe the horrors of the world when they are listed in volume. It is easy to find the world frightening and without redemption and even unimportant men can believe they are center-stage to world-wide conspiracy, for every man is the central character of his own story, and holds the weight of that importance. Men of belief find it easy to believe, right or wrong.

  Bell followed his horror stories with words of God’s will and love. He spoke of God’s decency to man, how Jesus preached equality and forgiveness, and how the flock will hold themselves separate from humanity until the world fully acknowledges equality and love for fellow men and women.

  “My themes were simple. The world is bad, the government is bad, we are good; you are safe with us.”

  The Reverend smiled again.

  “I made so much money. The compound capacity was three-hundred, and I owned it free and clear. My dad built it with his first followers. The canvassers were told the money was to cover our expenses, with the rest going to help charitable causes furthering equality. I kept the money. The beauty of the church was that the outside world was as bad as I claimed. There was no real convincing required. Most of our members came to us from low and middle class neighborhoods of Barstow and Los Angeles. They had seen riots and violence.

  After a similar church in New Mexico got torched by the old Federal government, we invested in guns and a first rate surveillance system.

  I don’t have to tell you what happened next. Everyone knows this part. One day it started raining and it never stopped. The cities flooded, homes and hills slid off into the ocean, waves pummeled the buildings. Men and women fled the coast in droves.

  It was funny to me, ironic if you think about it. I rationalized gun and food hoarding to my flock by hinting that end times were near, never expecting that the end times were actually upon us.

  My dad once told me that people need convincing, and the end of the world is the best convincer.

  He said, ‘Son, people are only going to follow what they fear or love, and by God we can give them both.’

  So I had guns and I had food, and I had medical supplies, not because I needed them, but because I wanted my flock to think we needed them. And then the fucking apocalypse happens!”

  Reverend Greek clapped his hands together.

  “I didn’t know whether to shit or go blind, as they used to say.”

  The waterline on the coast rose and tornadoes chased tsunamis through Los Angeles. The National Guard did their best in rallying the hordes of survivors. They raided supermarkets and gas stations for food and supplies. The soldiers pulled back to Orange County and set up tent hospitals and refugee villages above the waterline, but then most of the guardsmen were pulled away to repel the Mexicans near San Diego and Calexico. Everywhere was descending to chaos and the nation’s protectors were spread thin. Los Angeles and the surrounding suburbs went lawless in the course of about twelve days.

  “There were about eight million people in the greater Los Angeles area and something like thirty percent of it was completely underwater. A lot of people died in the Storms, but there were survivors trapped under the waterline, too.

  Elders in my flock suggested that we use my boat to hunt for people marooned on their roof tops and apartment buildings, to do God’s work in a real and tangible way, to act like Christians. For the first time since I was thirteen, I actually thought maybe there was a God and he was playing his hand. That maybe it was a good time to start acting outside of self-interest, just in case.

  So I left with the stronger men of my flock, the long-distance canvassers. We loaded up a van with rifles, ropes, food, and first aid supplies and hitched my boat to it. We launched at the waterline. Huntington was like an all-access marina. You should have seen my craft, a beautiful sixty foot fisher with all the bells and whistles.

  We spotted our first castaways about a half mile in, poor folk on their rooftops, half dead from exposure and dehydration. The water stank like sewage and oil, which was a large part of it. The top layer glistened oil rainbows in the sun.

  At our third rescue a fat blond guy in a wife beater pulled a .38 and demanded we jump ship, like he was a pirate or something. Before I could get a word out, Jericho Ericson, one of my flock, put two 30-06 rounds in the guy’s chest. The stranger spun and sprayed and hit the water. The funny thing was nobody flinched. Not my flock, not the castaways we’d just taken aboard, no one. Everyone was sort of numb, like nothing could surprise us after the days of storms.

  We went through the day like that. We filled the boat. We ferried the castaways back to Huntington. They waded through the filthy shallow water up to our van, where the flock was waiting to taxi them to the compound. Order was easy to keep, the flock had guns, and the refugees didn’t.

  Out on the water we saw other boats
rescuing folks, same as us. You wouldn’t believe it. Row boats, yachts, wave runners, fishing craft. Whatever was not destroyed in the tsunamis or storms. At one point I saw a yacht, a full-on luxury craft, with a famous movie star. Can’t remember his name, he played a cop in all those action movies, not the disgraced governor but the other one. And there he went, pitching in with the rest of us. Sometimes we saw people too far gone for help, people dried out and waiting to die. Jericho shot and killed three more men that day. He had developed a knack, I guess.

  For me, it was a long day of work in contrast to what had been a pretty soft life. I refueled the boat at the van, set back out, and the boat filled up in an hour or so. The whole thing was like spitting in the ocean. I saved all the people I could, but before turning back I saw thousands more, laid out on their rooftops. They moaned and called for help, some fired shots at the boat, some shot flares into the sky, but there was just too many of them. I remember one family refused to get on board, said that they would rather wait for a military rescue operation to come. They’re probably still out there, their dried out bones waiting for what don’t come.

  We worked through the day and into the night. We took the castaways who shined flashlights from their roofs. We worked until there was no spare fuel, until we had just enough to get ourselves home. On the last run I watched flashlight beams and torches extended to the horizon, a thousand specs of light from people who I’m sure died waiting.”

  Reverend Greek’s hand shook in front of the fire.

  “We returned to the compound. The flock sang hymnals to the refugees. It seemed like a good idea, though the refugees didn’t sing along. They looked empty, like the world was over and they were caught in a dream. We made a tent city in our courtyard and converted the main house into a kitchen and eating hall. All in all we saved three-hundred forty-six people. One of them died that night. He was far gone with fever and infection when we found him.”

  Reverend Greek spat in the fire.

  “We had a lot of food, plus generators, guns, and tall concrete walls. This gave us an incredible advantage over the rest of humanity. Tornadoes landed north and south of us, but Rancho was left largely intact. What nature left alone, scavengers and gangs stripped bare in weeks. But scavengers couldn’t touch us. The best thing about old, pre-Storm California was its restrictive gun laws. They’d done such a good job keeping the citizens gun free in good times that scavengers had little to work with in bad times. Gangs came to breach our walls with maybe a couple of handguns, or a rifle or two if they were lucky. Jericho equipped our tower guards with scopes, night vision, and Barrett rifles that could explode a man within a mile. Our security ran like clockwork. A gang would come for our goods, our boys would erase whoever was the loudest, whoever looked like the leader, and the gang would move on to easier meat.

  After the rains subsided a bit, Rancho heated up. Not a normal heat; a moist, sweaty heat. Like a swamp. The sand turned green with algae and muck. Then came locusts, mosquitoes, flying bugs I couldn’t name if I wanted to, eating everything leafy that wasn’t covered up, or sucking the blood off the animals.

  We had greenhouses and water catchments. Rain came and went. The first few months were actually pleasant aside from occasional skirmishes with gangs. The refugees for the most part integrated with the flock. We took in lone survivors and refugee families if they came to our walls looking sane and safe. Many adopted our religion with the understanding that those who didn’t were free to go when the federals restored everything. Television and radio were still up with emergency broadcasts, but the messages were old. Cell phone service, internet; they all went out with the collapsed infrastructure. The news we got was from wandering refugees and the occasional people we took in. News in those days was all about hope. Everyone wanted to believe that the rebuild was coming. The government would come back and relocate the refugees, rebuild the economy. They would reclaim the United States and regain their happy lives.

  The seasons changed with no word from the federals. Everything was so hot and balmy with goddamn bugs everywhere. It was in the first summer that the sick broke out.

  One day our gate guards let in a family that had come from the south, Chula Vista or Del Mar. They carried a little boy, eight or so, covered in angry red bumps. The boy was pocked and feverish and the family swore it was chicken pox. We put him in the medical tent with other refugees, those with heat stroke or broken arms; the parents were fed and housed as best we could.”

  “Was it small pox?” Lead asked.

  “Of course it was,” Reverend Greek said bitterly.

  “It was new small pox, virus one on the Zona list.

  It tore through the compound for two weeks. Sickness moved like the devil’s snake, eating men and women whole and all we could do was isolate the virals and watch them die. We lost eighty-three. We buried them out past the south wall of the compound. The dirt was like muck and clay. The graves were wet, but we dug them as deep as the land allowed and, prayed over them. We stopped taking new refugees after that.

  The scavengers just about vanished after the pox really took hold. The wild men were too sick to throw rocks at our walls or swing clubs. Even cut off from other humans, even after the new pox had run its course; we’d still get sick. I guess it was the bugs; mosquitoes, lice, God knows.

  From a rifle tower I watched the smoke of funeral pyres run three hundred and sixty degrees. All those roving gangs and wannabe villages fell sick and burned their dead. I swear to Christ it got so bad the clouds rained ash and everything reeked of smoke and burnt meat.

  I fought for the lives of my flock. Every sickness was like a challenge from God. I received these people and sheltered them and I felt the obligation of leadership. We had no doctors. Two of my flock were registered nurses before conversion. They ran the sick tent. One of them died four months into the calamity. She caught pneumonia and it took her apart. On her last day it sounded like she was breathing through glue. She whispered words we didn’t catch and then closed her eyes forever.”

  Reverend Greek pulled a silver flask from his jacket pocket and took a sip.

  “She was one of my wives. Her name was Ellen Dannon Bell and she was a believer. She was thirty-five years old, pretty face, thick-bodied but still good to look at; a real solid woman.”

  Reverend Greek put the flask back into his jacket.

  “I’d offer you some of this hooch, but I probably have leprosy and it’d be a shame for you to leave here with that.”

  Lead looked past Reverend Greek out to the navy blue morning sky. The sun would soon come.

  “How did you come to Tucson?” Lead asked.

  “I walked.” Reverend Greek said with a laugh. “Though not straight away; we stuck it out in Rancho for about eight years. Aside from the viruses, it wasn’t difficult to stay put. We’d been an isolated community before. The refugees tolerated our religion and we tolerated them, lest they broke our laws. Families were formed, children were birthed. People worked together. The one punishment was exile. It didn’t take long for everyone to get in line. Plagues reduced our numbers pretty quick; the deaths bonded us, surviving bonded us, belief bonded us. We gardened in the compound. We rationed food and water best we could, but our stores dwindled. I told the flock to still themselves and wait for God’s deliverance. We’d given up on the government.

  Worry rippled through my people like a current. Then came murmurs and whispers and quiet words of fleeing, of starting somewhere else. I refused to discuss the abandonment of my compound. From where I stood, the outside world was populated by feral men and animals. From the towers I watched them scavenge through the husks of the old world like coyotes, lean and desperate. There was no proof of better grounds. Humans stayed behind stone walls, to risk our safety was to risk those of us who had rightfully earned our lives by enduring the days of plague and sick.

  Then one night I dreamed a dream. I was sitting on a hill immersed in long grass. The sky was blue again, not the dusty mess i
t had become. Out of the grass a rabbit appeared and sat next to me. The rabbit cleared his throat and I looked down at him.

  “There’s not going to be any rain,” the rabbit said. “The weather is broken. Take your people across the desert, for they will die here.”

  I woke happy. God had revealed himself to me. I gathered the flock and told them of my divine message. We were to cross the desert east. Las Vegas was the logical choice. City like that was built to accommodate three million, maybe more. Shelter wouldn’t be a problem. All those resorts were bound to have canned reserves, bottled water, swimming pools. We were destined to turn the city of sin into a city of holy gathering.

  Preparation took very little time; we had been idle in our shelter and took enthusiastically to meaningful labor. We repaired our vans and got them to running condition. We hallowed out the cabs to better fit people and supplies. We stuffed the vans with sixty-three of my flock plus scant provisions. Twenty-four, including Jericho Ericson stayed in the compound to await our eventual return. The waiters trusted that God would provide or accept them into heaven shortly. They were martyrs in their minds. They’re probably still out there.”

  Reverend Greek barked a sudden laugh and took another drink from his flask. He wiped his suit sleeve across his chin.

  “I’ll bet Jericho is standing in one of my towers, old and mean, that same 30-06 strapped across his shoulder, waiting to shoot the devil himself.

  Highway Fifteen to Vegas was an absolute mess. The parts that weren’t clogged with derelict cars were broken to rubble by bad weather and lack of upkeep. We traveled at a near crawl in the dirt next to the highway. We had eight vans in a line, like cowboy pioneers on the Oregon Trail. We’d cut portholes into the roofs with mobile platforms for riflemen. I was in the lead van, standing out on the platform, swinging a birch staff I’d fashioned from a table. I was Moses leading the chosen to the promise land.