Morning birdsong—the throb of helicopters—floated into her command tent, as it had been doing since before dawn. Jessica finished her second cup of breakfast coffee and threw the Cup, foam, into the trash. She rose from behind her desk and sought out her husband.
Pat was in the communications tent, helping the techs with their Computers (Database for mission tracking). “Hey, runner!” she said.
Pat was gazing into the innards of a three-year-old—and therefore rather antique—IBM, and trying to fit a modem card into the slot. He looked up. “Ma’am?” he said.
“Tell Colonel Davidovitch that I’ll be TDY for a few hours, okay?”
“Now?” he said.
“Yes,” Jessica said. “Orders generally mean now unless otherwise stated.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He returned the modem card to its bubble wrap. “You know,” he said, “Jeb Stuart had someone on his staff just to play the banjo.”
“If I need a banjo player, you’ll be the first one I’ll call.”
An aftershock bounced the ground as Jessica made her way to the helipad, one vertical jounce after another. Jessica weaved slightly as she walked and tried not to twist an ankle. She had seen to the recovery of MVD headquarters, which was now capable of surviving without her for a few hours. Her new Helicopter (Transportation, for use of) waited for her. She wanted to make a personal inspection of her division.
And if things were as bad as she expected, she’d have to call her commander-in-chief and tell him what he needed to do.
“Sugar bear,” said Sheryl, “I think it’s time to put up my Apocalypse.” Frankland paused, his hand poised with the razor to shave the dimple on his receding chin. He had tried to make certain that men remained shaved, and that everyone wash their face and hands before meals. Good for morale, he’d thought.
“Yes,” he said, “yes. I’ll help you in a minute.”
After he finished shaving, he helped Sheryl carry her linen scrolls from her workroom to the church. Frankland got Hilkiah and some of the others to drive wooden stakes into the ground, and Sheryl unrolled her opus and stapled the scrolls to the tall wooden stakes so that they formed a long, fabric wall, with occasional gaps so as not to provide a continuous surface that the wind could more easily damage. Frankland was awestruck. There was the Apocalypse in all its glory, blazing in the brightest color: John of Patmos cowered before the Son of Man. Seven golden candlesticks burned in the darkness; seven angels held seven vials; four beasts each with six wings clustered about the Throne; four Horsemen rode across a petrified world; a red dragon with seven heads and seven crowns; a woman unfurled the wings of an eagle; a scarlet woman on a scarlet beast; Babylon laid in ruins; the City of God descending to the earth in a glory of light. All in the most astounding detail, down to the leering tongue of the Beast and the malevolent glitter in its eyes.
It was magnificent. More beautiful, Frankland thought, than the Whatchamacallit Chapel in Rome. People were wandering up to look at it. Pointing, and marveling. Sheryl’s face glowed with pride.
“I’m so proud of you, sweetie pie!” Frankland said. “It’s the most gorgeous thing I ever saw.”
“It’s what we should all expect,” Sheryl said. “It’s what everyone will need to know in order to survive the next seven years.”
“You should take the rest of the day off, sweetie pie,” Frankland said. “Just stay here with it and be like, you know, a tour guide. Explain to the people what they’re looking at.”
“I’ll do that.”
Frankland gave her a big kiss, right there in public.
The Apocalypse glowed around him, on its wide linen walls.
There it was on the water, like a giant wedding cake built against the left bank of the Mississippi. Tier upon tier of white lace, twin stacks topped by elaborate gold crowns, an enormous stern wheel with its blades painted vermilion.
Nick gave a nervous laugh as the giant boat grew nearer. “That’s the weirdest thing I ever saw. Right in the middle of all this wilderness.”
lucky magnolia casino, said the scarlet letters on the side, in some old-timey script. Jason looked at Nick over his shoulder. “Hey,” he said, “want to play some slots?”
“We must be in Mississippi,” Nick said. “Everyone from Tennessee comes down here to spend their money.” The last time he’d driven Highway 61 south of Memphis, it seemed as if there had been dozens of casinos, each with its own stoplight on the highway, as if every driver in Mississippi was forced to halt in honor of the money flowing toward the state from the north.
When Nick had been a kid, driving to Mississippi to visit his grandparents, there had been nothing on that road but wilderness, cotton fields, and desolation. Now the wilderness was overflowing with gold. Nick gave it some thought. “Casinos have restaurants,” he said. “We could get more supplies. And we could prepare the food properly in the kitchen.”
“It would be nice not to sleep on the boat tonight,” Jason added. “I did it once, and that was enough.”
“Right,” Nick said. “Let’s give it a try.”
Jason crawled over the foredeck and started the trolling motor. As they came closer, they saw the casino had suffered earthquake damage. Some of the white gingerbread had fallen, and it looked as if the inshore stack would have toppled if it hadn’t been held in place by cables. Several windows were cracked or broken.
The casino loomed over them. It looked as huge as an aircraft carrier.
“Hook on,” Nick called, and he and Jason each reached out with a boathook and snagged the rail. They brought the bass boat alongside and tied it to a fluted pillar that supported the deck above. Jason gauged his movement, then jumped to the casino boat and legged over the rail. Nick followed more cautiously. He peered through a window into the darkened interior. “Here’s a restaurant,” he said.
“There’s got to be a kitchen next door.”
The first door was locked, but the second opened to a corridor that led into the restaurant. A stack of menus lay spilled near the entrance. The restaurant featured green faux leather booths and brass torchieres, their gleam dimmed by the gray light outside. At one end of the room, the remains of a buffet supper sat beneath swarms of flies at a cold steam table. There were plates and glasses on the white linen tablecloths where meals had been interrupted by the catastrophe.
“Here’s the kitchen,” Nick said. He walked past a waitresses’ station and pushed through a swinging door.
The kitchen was cold and dark, lit only by a single cracked window. A row of burgers, grease and cheese congealed, waited on a counter for a waiter to pick them up. The flies hadn’t got through the swinging door to find them.
The freezers and refrigerators were huge, with brushed steel doors. Nick opened one of the refrigerators and eyed its contents.
“We better stay away from anything that could spoil,” he said. “The power’s been off too long.” Jason wandered over to the range, turned the control for a burner. There was a hiss of gas, and the repeated clicking of an igniter, but nothing lit. “We can cook,” he said, “but I think this needs to be lit with a match.”
Nick opened a freezer, pulled out packages of meats that were still frozen. “We got chicken, beef, fish, sausage… how about pork chops?”
“They all sound great to me,” Jason said. Ever since their interrupted breakfast, he’d eaten only from cans. He opened a tap in the sink, felt his heart lighten at the pouring water. “We’ve got water, anyway,” he said.
The tap water reminded him of an errand of nature. He turned off the tap. “I’m going to see if I can find a toilet,” he said.