Yikes. Maybe theyareburning the books. Nadine pulls back out of the sheriff’s lot and continues our tour through Sadville—I mean, Fort Caroline.
“What were those guys gutting the store back there for?” I ask. She seems to be in more of a habit of answering me.
“The selectmen have created a plan to condense the town so we have one drugstore, one convenience store, one grocery, and then there’s the hospital. Any store deemed redundant is being emptied to the studs and when a need for something arises, they’ll put it in there. Right now, it’s just residential living. We have a few of the apartment buildings fully occupied and our scouting parties are traveling farther out than they’ve ever been. Soon we’re going to be even bigger and we’ll need more space to put those people.”
I wonder if Fort Caroline realizes they’ve invented socialism.
A group of five men surround an open manhole in the middle of the street. One waves Nadine around them and she continues.
“How far have you gone?” I ask.
“Virginia.”
Of course. That explains why it was harder for us to find food after leaving Alexandria. It also explains the cleared-out highway. I wonder if the people who left the car ran into a Fort Caroline motorcade.
Nadine adds, “They’re hoping to get to DC by the end of the year.”
“We passed through DC,” Jamie says. “There’s no one there.”
“Supplies, then.”
“Hope they bring their weapons,” I mutter to Jamie, and make a silent, growly lion face.
He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t laugh. He just keeps his eyes trained outside. His fingers move next to his leg, raising and lowering one at a time. Is he trying to speak in some code? Is this sign language? But when we pass another crew gutting a store, I realize he’s counting people. Not all of them, though.
What is he counting?
Nadine takes us to the grocery store, which is an old Aldi, and explains how the ration vouchers work. We’ll receive our first vouchers once we turn in the questionnaire we’ve forgotten to fill out. Vouchers are delivered every Sunday morning. There’s also a supply warehouse that processes what we came into the town with and we’ll get vouchers from that as well.
She shows us the school next, informing us that children from five all the way up to fifteen are expected to be in school from eight a.m. until six p.m. I ask if after fifteen they have to move on to job placement. Nadine confirms this with a grunt.
She shows us where the hospital is, parking in the front andshowing us into the emergency room and the family medicine wing. There are a few people in the waiting room, but the most serious injury seems to be a big bald guy with a scrape over his left eye and an attractive blond dude with a cut on his leg that’s already stopped bleeding. We pass a few hallways that are dark and the rooms on both sides look empty. Like most of the beds and equipment have been removed.
I make a joke about universal healthcare that lands like a dead fish and then we’re off to the pharmacy. It looks busy. There are teams on both sides of it, reaching into plastic bins and filling boxes. They then hand the boxes off to other people who go into the pharmacy to empty them and return for another.
Stocking up.
“Where does all the extra stuff go?” I ask.
“The supply warehouse. It’s just outside the main drag where almost everything is sorted and then sent here.”
It’s methodical, and it’s also kind of redundant—what with people emptying drugstores, taking the supplies to the warehouse for sorting, and then bringing them back here—but at least it’s a system? And at least they’re all working.
But as I watch everyone entering and exiting the pharmacy, I can’t help but feel a little unsettled. There’s something off about all this.
About everyone here.
Nadine drives us back to the sheriff’s department, where Grover Denton is waiting outside for us. I thank Nadine for the tour as we get out of the car. And yes, it sounds a little sarcastic. But I try to smile so it looks like I’m being genuine.
Lady Marine probably knows I’m full of shit and doesn’t respond.
Something is still bothering me about this place, and I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s because it’stooperfect? Everyone out and about is young and strong and working together to rebuild the world. There’s a hospital. There’s a school. There’s a fucking Aldi, for Christssake.
Grover’s in the middle of his questionnaire spiel outside the sheriff’s department—seriously, the Fort Caroliners have a real boner for this questionnaire—when he says something that actually surprises me.
“I assume the two of you have weapons.” We don’t need to answer because he saw the rifle Jamie had last night. “You can keep them—in fact, it’s encouraged.”
Qué?
