“You’re right out of your mind! Get out of here before I blow your brains out!” Charlie wiped tobacco juice off his face. “You don’t understand,” he said.
“I know a drunken derelict when I see one! Now clear out!”
Charlie got cautiously to his feet, keeping his distance from the man. “I’m not a derelict!” he said. “I’m a millionaire!”
“You’re a derelict now, rich man! You’re a bobtail flush that ain’t got nothing to sell but bullshit!” Charlie backed away. His cheek stung. Bewilderment whirled through his mind. What was wrong with the man, he wondered.
He had to stop three times on the way home and sit on the curb to rest. He was rich, he protested to himself. He had guessed right about the market. So why couldn’t he buy anything?
Cable snaked through the block hung below the triangle. The electric winch whined, and the great concrete lid rose from the bunker.
Below Frankland saw packaged food. Flour, beans, rice, condensed milk, baby formula, canned fruit and vegetables, vitamins. Two years’ supply for two people. Plus seed corn and fertilizer so that crops could be raised after the food ran out.
The Rails Bluff area had finally run out of food. What had been plundered from the Piggly Wiggly, the Wal-Mart, and the cupboards of the residents would be gone within a day or so. Frankland decided to open the bunkers of the Apocalypse Club. These were supplies laid aside for the End Times by his followers, people who had answered his radio appeals and who had intended to join him here in Rails Bluff when the end of the world was clearly nigh.
But they hadn’t arrived, not one of them, and hundreds of refugees had come instead. He had to feed the people who were here, no matter who the food actually belonged to.
The Apocalypse Club had thirty sealed caches behind Frankland’s home. Some belonged to the Elders, who had three months’ supplies in their bunkers, and others to the Lions of Judah, with six months’
supplies. Some belonged to the Roots of David, who had a year’s supplies, and others belonged to the Seventh Seals, who had purchased supplies for two years or more.
Actually there were only three Seventh Seals: Frankland, Sheryl, and Hilkiah. Response to Frankland’s radio appeals had not been as great as Frankland had hoped. Hilkiah had bought his supplies on credit from Frankland and was slowly paying off the debt a few dollars at a time.
If necessary Frankland would open them all. But he would set a personal example and start with the Seventh Seals, with his and Sheryl’s own personal supplies, and work from there down the list. Things were moving along too well for material considerations to impede progress now. It was just as he had written it down in his Plan, years ago. Day 7—all unite in love and praise of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Everyone was pulling together. Everyone was praising God. Sin had been vanquished, in the persons of people like Magnusson and Hanson and MacGregor, and everyone had rejoiced in their repentance.
The only thing that Frankland regretted was the death of Robitaille. If he’d had a chance to work with the priest a little more, he’d probably have been able to bring him around.
Frankland bent and helped Hilkiah move the heavy concrete lid to the side. “There,” he said. “Let’s get it moved to the kitchens.”
“Brother Frankland?”
Frankland turned to find Sheriff Gorton approaching, along with a well-dressed, white-haired man in a coat and tie. Other than for Frankland and the other pastors, who wore ties for services, ties had been pretty rare since the End Times had begun.
The stranger looked somewhat familiar, though Frankland couldn’t place him.
“Brother Frankland,” the Sheriff said, “this is Gus Gustafson, from the County Council.” Frankland wiped the soil from his hands and shook Gustafson’s hand. “Pleased to meet you, Brother Gustafson,” he said.
Gustafson glanced around the camp with ice-blue eyes. “It’s quite a place you have here, sir,” he said.
“Quite an accomplishment.”
“Thank you. But all glory goes to Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit.”
“Ye-es.” Gustafson’s blue eyes darted from one place to the other. “When I tell the rest of the council members what you’ve done here, I’m sure they’ll be impressed. I think the county owes a vote of thanks to you for helping so many of our people.” He cleared his throat, and his voice turned brisk. “But what I’ve come to tell you, sir,” he said, “is that the state is now able to take some of this burden off your shoulders. We’ve managed to open a road through the piney woods east from the county seat, and from there to Pine Bluff and points south.”
“Well, good!” Frankland said. “Can you send us some supplies? Because,” he confided, “the food situation is getting a little critical around here.”
“I believe what the government has in mind,” Gustafson said, “isn’t to send food here, but to send the people where the food is. You’ve heard about the President’s evacuation order, right? Well, a refugee camp is being set up in the Hot Springs National Park. The whole county is being evacuated to there.” Frankland stared at Gustafson in amazement. “But the evacuation’s all about water, right? We don’t get our water from the river! We have wells—good wells!”
Gustafson cleared his throat. “The water’s only a part of the situation, as I understand it. This area is still subject to strong earthquakes that can cause casualties and damage the infrastructure. It took a road crew three days to bulldoze through the piney woods to get to Rails Bluff from the county seat! The Emergency Management people would have a lot of trouble shipping food into an area this remote, and so it makes more sense to pull people out of the area to a place where they can be fed more efficiently.” Frankland gave an astonished laugh. “That’s the government for you!” he said. “They never think about the people at all!”
Gustafson cleared his throat again. “Well, that’s as may be. But tomorrow morning they’re sending a big convoy of National Guard vehicles to pull everyone out of here.”
Frankland shook his head. Poor old Gustafson just didn’t get it. “You don’t understand,” he said. “The people here are happy. They’re praising God. They won’t want to leave.” Sheriff Gorton dug into the dirt with the toe of his boot. For the first time Gustafson looked surprised.
“You’re sure about that, sir?” he said.
“Oh yes.”
“Well,” Gustafson nodded, “in that case, just to ease my mind, I’m sure you won’t mind if we ask them.” Sweat poured down Charlie’s nose as he punched number after number into the cellphone. Nothing happened at all. Maybe he’d worn out the batteries.
He threw the receiver down, rubbed his unshaven face. He was not a derelict, he thought. Not. Exhaust from the line of National Guard trucks blew over the camp. Frankland watched in black despair as the long line of people, clutching their small bundles and their children, began to move out of the camp, past the black walls of Sheryl’s Apocalypse, toward the waiting vehicles.
“This isn’t necessary!” Frankland called. “You can stay here! We have everything you need!”