Not your usual McKenna book, but one that has been brewing in my head for a long time and, so far, is perking just fine on paper. Or on screen, I should say.
Wanted to give you a taste of the opening chapter:
Dooley, Georgia
Sometime
Drax lay very still, flat on the ground, with his face nearly touching the damp leaves.
He kept his breathing slow and even, despite the almost overwhelming temptation to pant. He could feel sweat begin forming all over him, even while he could see his breath white on the chilly air. That wasn’t good. Some people said that they could catch scent in the air as good as a hound.
The footsteps were quiet, coming from just down the hill from where he lay. He knew he was pretty well camouflaged, because of the netting and the fall of dead trees behind which he lay, but if they were really looking for him, he wasn’t sure what they could see and what they couldn’t, with the new military sensors they had. Or what was rumored that they had, which was more accurate. Nobody really knew.
He listened with everything he had in him. Clust had taught him to listen the way his grandfather had taught him in these same woods. Not just with your ears, Drax, he had said. With the beat of your heart; with how the earth feels under your feet. Under your whole body is better; lie flat and listen with how the earth reacts to who is walking. Listen with everything.
The footsteps were light, quiet, but not hesitant. Relaxed, that was how they were. And only one set. And, as he now heard them, it was on four feet. There was a step then a pause. Then a step step. Then a pause and a step. It wasn’t a man. It wasn’t a Reg. Drax moved his head, raising it slightly, then up slightly again until he could see down the hill.
Even so, it took him a minute or two to see it. The gray-brown of it was so close to the gray-brown of the bare trees, he couldn’t see it until it moved again. Then, it became plain in his view. It was a deer, a doe all alone, nosing the leaves as it walked.
Drax let his breath out slowly and breathed in a deep sigh. Even that alerted the deer. She lifted her head, the big ears swiveling his way, suddenly stock still. When he slid his knees under him and then got to his feet, the white banner of a tail came up and it bounded away from him further down the hill through the little pass the two slopes made. Drax stood and watched it go.
There was no more sound. It was just a quiet now as it had been when he first heard the steps. He looked toward the tops of the trees, seeing a few birds flying. There was a crow or two. That was good. He was quiet enough and had been in the woods enough that the crows ignored him; a Reg would set them off. There was no sound. Only the wind coming through the bare branches, down toward the Soque.
He went back to what he had been doing before he had heard the deer’s footsteps. There wasn’t much to do, not really. He moved the drape of camouflage from the big metal box and fit the key into the lock. It turned easily and the lifting of the lid was soundless.
Inside, he did what he always did. What Da always told him, no matter how many times he had done it before. Check the expiration labels on the cans, Da told him. Rotate the older ones to the front. Bring the oldest ones out. Put the ones you bring in to the furthest back. Make sure there’s no damp inside. Count the blankets. Make sure nothing’s missing. Don’t stay long and don’t make tracks if you can help it.
That last was hard to do. It was best if he came when the ground had been dry awhile and the leaves held no impression. But then, his every step could be heard. It was a trade off.
He quickly took the oldest canned goods out, then moved the rows forward and, unbuckling his pack, put the cans he carried to the back. He tried not to take note of the labels; seeing them made his mouth water. His oldest sister, Tavvy always said it was almost worth getting raided by the Regs if only to get to eat some of the rations in the box. His little sister, Bevyn, would have begged to have them keep just one can for supper, please Da, if she had been allowed. But even Bevyn knew better. It was no use to beg. Besides, they could have one of the old ones tonight. That was good enough.
When he had finished what he had to do, he lastly picked up the flashlight at the bottom of the box and flicked it on, keeping the beam inside. It still worked. When he unscrewed the handle and tipped out the batteries, they still looked fine. No corrosion. He put them back, screwed it all together again and tucked it back down. He pulled out the lighter and tested that, too. When he was sure about it all, he took out the little oil can he carried, dropped a few drops onto the hinge of the lid on both sides and massaged it in carefully before closing it down. It slid closed soundlessly as always. The key locked it, he covered it with the camouflage drape and pushed some leaves around to disguise where he had knelt.
Picking up his pack, he made his meandering way back through the woods, skirting the pasture completely until he met the stream and then on to the path across to the back of the house. That was the safest way. He would wade upstream a little way before stepping onto the bank again. It might fool a Reg. It might seem like someone had just gone down the path to the stream and then back.
From the look of the sun, he needed to hurry. It was getting near suppertime and they would be waiting for the old canned goods he carried to make a treat for their Sunday night meal. Drax stopped long enough to bend over and fold up the cuffs on his trousers. He was wearing Da’s old pair; his had gotten way too small for him. Way too small, but they couldn’t afford to buy any more. Still, he didn’t mind too much; it was better than walking into church with pants legs up above his ankles.
Bout time he started growing, he figured. He was sixteen after all. His father was tall and lanky; he was counting on being tall like him, like his cousin, Esh, and like Uncle Addai. But he had lagged behind.
Aunt Luri said that they didn’t eat enough. That nobody ate enough these days. Maybe that was it; he didn’t know. He knew that he thought about food a lot, all the time. That Tavvy and Bevyn talked about food; that what they gave them in school for school lunches wasn’t much but that the kids that lived in town seemed to think they were the best in the world.
Most people around where they lived had a garden. They were the grateful ones. Don’t say we’re lucky, his Mam said. Don’t say we’re blessed, either, cause that sound religious. Say we’re grateful and if anyone asks, tell them we’re grateful for getting to share with everybody, not grateful to God. Never say anything about God.
She didn’t have to tell him that. He’d have to be stupid not to know that.
Drax at last made his way to where the Soque was shallow under the bridge. It was still shallow enough here so he could wade it in his boots. With his pants rolled up, he could do it and not get wet at all. He didn’t have to worry about noise here; the sound of the water running over the shallows masked any splashing he could make. Once on the other side, he let his breath out as he finally walked up the track toward Long Barn. He could barely make out the lighted windows of Old House. The dusk was falling quickly now.
It had been eight years since the war had finally ended. Drax wasn’t sure how it had started; the lessons taught in school kept getting changed on what country had done what to who. He had been too young to really remember the ending of it, only that the grid had been down a long time by then. Nobody really knew what was going on in other parts of the state, let alone the world.
All he really knew was what Da and Mam had told them, and they only knew from what they heard in town or what they remembered. They always made sure the kids heard the old stories, though. They said that their Family had always been big on old stories and so it was natural for them to get told and retold, even the bad ones.
Sometime back a decade or two, there had been the Second Civil War, Drax knew that. It had started in the cities, Da said, and though it had never really traveled all the way to where they were in the Southern Appalachians, still Dooley had felt the effects. That was about the same time that the war in Europe had gotten worse and of course, the Middle East was a catastrophe by then. Israel and Jordan had held on somehow, by the grace of God, Brother Clust said. But he didn’t say so in public.
By the time the war had come to the States, the Second Civil War had done its worst and it was easy pickings. Easy for the One World to declare martial law and put its Unified Army in charge. The States had been infiltrated for a long time, the UA sent troops by the million and even so, it had taken a long time to finally get to the point that there was a truce. Nobody really won anything. After the nuclear detonation in Nevada, there was not much left of that end of the country. That was when the grid went down.
Truth to tell, nobody ever really declared victory. It all just seemed like it burned itself out. Word was that Africa was still fighting like it had done thirty years before, but nobody really cared as long as they stayed over there. As for Europe and Asia, there were no borders anymore. They were in the process of doing the same in the Americas. They said borders were one of the biggest obstacles for World Peace. Borders caused nationalism. And nationalism was not good.
Drax’s Da said that they were treading pretty carefully about the borders in the Americas and he didn’t know why. Why should they try to be diplomatic now? he said. They even let the States keep their states’ boundaries. He wondered if, despite the fact that they had been under martial law for nearly ten years, maybe the UA wasn’t as powerful as everybody thought it was. Maybe they didn’t want to risk a third Civil War, this time with all the Americas rising up.
From Drax’s point of view, nobody was acting like the UA was losing power. Everybody was afraid of the Regs. That was short for Regulators, which was the local enforcement. They had to regulate the people, make sure there was no infringement of the law at the local level. Couldn’t let that happen again. The Regs had the right to patrol wherever, since there was no private land anymore. No private property. No boundaries. No firearms, not even for hunting.
And absolutely no religion. That was the other big problem to World Peace, everybody knew. Religion, One World said, had been the basis of division from the beginnings of wars. To establish permanent world peace, there had to be no religion.
There had been a dark, difficult time, Dax’s Da told them. There were rumors of mass starvation, mass disease in the populous places. When the grid went down, when the war was raging, there was no heat for the cities, no air con (Dax still couldn’t figure what that was). Fuel production diminished to a trickle; food production slowed and there was no way to transport from state to state. When the West was nuked, no food could be grown there, anyway; all farm land was now used for the public consumption. The farmers were the grateful ones now; they had crops for themselves and for distribution, at least the farms far enough from the dead zone did.
Dax’s Family had always lived on farm land. Dax’s Da said that when his great-great grandfather was a boy, he had lived in Old House and Uncle Addai’s great-great grandfather had lived in New House and sometimes, it wasn’t great being a farmer. Sometimes it was hard work and not much money.
But money wasn’t relevant now, anyway. Everybody got a stipend from the One World according to the number in the household up to three children. No family could give birth to more than three children and next year, no family could give birth to more than two. It was for the good of the One World, to keep the population down. It all made perfect sense.
Dax’s Mam had had an abortion the year before. She had decided that she had to have it done early. She couldn’t wait, getting bigger and bigger and then have the baby in secret and…then what? Tavvy was only thirteen; they couldn’t pretend it was hers for the law was that no one under the age of sixteen could give birth at all. So, she had her abortion early. And Dax wondered sometimes if she would ever be the same again.
Anyway, with their monthly stipend and the little secret garden they kept up, with their one cow hidden in the buried barn, they did much better than most. Dax and his Family were rich because of it.
Uncle Addai had a buried barn, too, down close to the old gravestone. Elisha’s grave, it was. The lettering could barely be read; no one would have been able to tell what the words said, but Uncle Addai and Drax’s Da knew because they had always known. Even though the Regs had come and taken the stone cross off, like they had done all the other gravestones in all the other graveyards, they still knew the story. That was what handing down did, Da said. Hand down the old stories, you children. Tell on.
The lantern was burning in the middle of the table, Drax could see as he climbed the hill to Old House. His mouth was watering before he opened the back door; the smell of supper assaulted him, swamping him like a warm wave.
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What do you think? I'm liking my time writing it. Taking my time, letting it just come through. We'll see what happens next; who knows?