*
Helena died by phosgene gas. Two common chemicals, sulfuric acid and carbon tetrachloride, were mixed in the broken warehouse of a chemical company, and in sufficient quantities to generate a cloud large enough, by nightfall on the day of the quake, to cover the entire town below the bluff. The gas is colorless, and the characteristic scent of musty hay was not thought alarming by those who had already survived a major earthquake, and who were busy rescuing neighbors and taking shelter from a flood. Phosgene is fatal in small quantities, and often takes an hour or two to do its work: by the time its victims felt any symptoms, they had suffered enough exposure to assure their own fate.
Phosgene attacks the lungs, specifically the capillaries. The victims choked and gagged as their lungs filled with fluid, and then, as the characteristic euphoria of oxygen starvation took them, died in a strange, contented bliss.
A few survivors staggered or drove up the bluff to alert the town to what was happening. Helena, West Helena, and nearby communities were evacuated and cordoned off, but with communications so disrupted, and the roads so badly torn, the evacuation order in effect commanded the citizens to march into the wilderness and attempt to survive there for an indeterminate period. Thousands of people wandered lost in woods and fields for days, afraid to return home for fear of being poisoned.
Ironically, by the time the evacuation got under way, the danger had largely passed. Unlike mustard gas, Lewisite, or some nerve agents, phosgene does not persist in the environment. But Helena’s surviving civil authorities were in shock from Ml and easily panicked; they had no way of identifying the gas or assessing the danger; they gave the orders and hoped for the best.
Days later, half-starved families were still dragging themselves out of the countryside.
*
On the second morning after the quake, Charlie took a bucket of water from his swimming pool and used it to flush his toilet. Then he threw some chlorine in the pool to keep it drinkable— he didn’t know how much to use, he had a company who normally took care of this job, he just guessed. Then he looked in his refrigerator.
All that remained was Friday night’s canard a l’orange in its foam container, and a can of Megan’s diet drink, and the anchovies. He took the diet drink from the shelf and opened it.
Vanilla. He hated vanilla.
He drank it anyway, and then ate the anchovies, which made a horrid contrast with the vanilla drink. Possibly, he thought, he should get some more food.
But the nearest supermarket was on the other side of the chasm in the street, and he couldn’t cross the chasm. He just couldn’t. His heart staggered at the thought of it.
And then he remembered the little grocery store. It was maybe a mile away in the other direction.
He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before. There seemed to be something wrong with the way he was putting things together.
Had to get a grip, he thought. He was Lord of the Jungle.
Charlie made sure his wallet was in his pocket, and then he put on his St. Louis Cardinals cap and began his walk.
No chasms blocked Charlie’s way, though broad cracks ran across the road here and there. The neighborhood had been tidied somewhat: some of the fallen trees had been cut up and hauled out of the road, some of the broken glass swept up. Charlie heard the constant sound of chainsaws.
There was almost no traffic. Charlie saw only a few trucks moving, carrying supplies apparently, and a flatbed truck with a bulldozer on it. He saw no official vehicles at all, no police, no fire trucks, no National Guard.
As he left his prosperous Germantown neighborhood, he saw clumps of ill-kempt people standing on street corners, people who watched him in silence. Children and babies were everywhere, the children unbathed, the babies crying.
The store shared a little strip mall with a furniture store and a place that sold office supplies. All the windows were gone: the office supply store was boarded up, but the furniture store was wide open. As Charlie walked past the furniture store he saw people inside, apparently living there, sleeping in the bedroom displays. Two unshaven, shirtless men in baseball caps carried a chest of drawers across the parking lot. It didn’t appear to Charlie that they were employees.
The windows of the convenience store were gone, but a rusty old Dodge van had been parked along the side of the store, blocking most of the broken windows. The broken glass had been swept into the gutter. Charlie saw figures moving in the darkened interior, and he heard a radio blaring, so he stepped in.
The inside was still a wreck. The quake had knocked practically everything off the shelves, and items hadn’t been replaced, just swept into crude piles.
new polisy, said a sign just inside the door, cash only. The sign was written in black felt marker on the back of another placard.
“If you came for milk,” said the man behind the counter, “we ran out yesterday.”
“No,” Charlie said. “Not milk.”
“Beer’s gone, too,” the man said.
The man was a white man in his fifties who wore a baseball cap and a dirty white T-shirt. He hadn’t shaved since before the quake, and he carried a long pump shotgun propped on one hip. CIGARETTES, said another sign over his head, $10 PACK, MARLBOROS $12.
The man was a profiteer, clear enough. Charlie wasn’t bothered. It wasn’t anything more than what he, Charlie, planned to do. Besides, he could buy and sell the whole store.
Behind him was a battery-powered radio on which quake victims were being interviewed. “It was a true miracle that I lived through it,” a man said. “A true miracle.”
All the canned goods had been piled in one area of the store, LITTEL CANS $7, the sign said, BIG CANS $20. The cans were all sizes, and it was difficult to say which of the medium-sized ones were big, and which were little.
“You want some flour?” the man said. “I got a little left, but not much. And some cornmeal. Sugar’s gone.”
“Flour?” Charlie said. “No.” He wouldn’t know what to do with it, had never baked anything in his life.
“My baby’s buried in there somewhere,” a woman on the radio sobbed. “We’re praying for a miracle.”
A door opened in the back of the store and a young man came in. He had long stringy hair to his shoulders and wore a baseball cap and a large revolver prominently strapped to his hip. He looked at Charlie. “C’n I help you?” he asked.
“Canned goods,” Charlie said, “and something to drink.”
“You want a bag?” the young man said.
Dinty Moore Beef Stew. Vienna sausages. Heinz baked beans. Spam. It was all dreadful, but Charlie filled his sack with it. When he could get real food again, he could give the extra canned stuff to the cleaning lady.
“It was a miracle that my father survived,” said a man on the radio.
Charlie put two plastic bottles of mineral water in another sack, then walked to the counter and gave the man his Visa card. The man looked at it with contempt.
“Can’t take this,” he said, showing long yellow teeth. “Cash only.” He pointed. “See the sign?”
“The card’s good, mate,” Charlie said. “It’s platinum.”
“Ain’t no way to call to prove that. Phone’s down.”
Charlie sighed, pulled out his Amex card, his MasterCard, his Eurocard, a couple hundred thousand dollars’ worth of credit all told. “They’re all good,” he said. “I can prove they belong to me.”
“Cash,” the man said, “only.”
Charlie eyed him. “Right, then,” he said. “Tell you what. Charge an extra hundred dollars to the total.”
The man thought about it for at least a half-second. Then shook his head. “Cash,” he said. “Radio says the economy’s gone crazy. I don’t know them banks are still around.”
“Of course they’re around!” Waving a card. “This is Chase Manhattan Bank.” Waving another. “This is American Express!”
“You got a problem here, pop?” the young man said. He stood behind Charlie and to one side, hand placed casually on the butt of his revolver.
“Cash,” the older man said. “None of your funny foreign money, neither.” There was a sadistic glint in his eye: he was enjoying this, humiliating one of the rich he’d served all his life. I’m working class, too! Charlie wanted to say. But he knew it was pointless: Americans didn’t know one British accent from another, thought everyone was a lord.
“Charge me double, then,” Charlie said.
The man took the plastic bag of canned goods in one hand, moved it out of Charlie’s reach. “You got cash or not?”
“I thank God,” said a woman on the radio, “for the miracle that saved us.”
Charlie reached into his pocket, took out his money clip. It held a ten, two singles, some change. The older man reached into Charlie’s bag and took out a can of Vienna sausage. “This and one of the bottles, eleven dollars.”
Charlie gave him eleven dollars. The man added it to a thick roll he produced from his pocket. Charlie looked in anger at the single dollar remaining.
“Sell you a lottery ticket for that?” the older man asked, and laughed.
The laughter followed Charlie out of the store.