Fiction - Over The Edge - A Vigenette
Over The Edge – A Vignette
Alistair Sinclair caught his daughter deftly when she leaped at him from the edge of the pool. Easing her down into the warm water, Alistair smiled at her delighted laughter. Only five, Rebecca had absolute trust in her father.
And why shouldn’t she. Alistair was a highly successful executive, devoted husband, and loving father. He couldn’t do enough for his family. A sudden frown crossed his face, but was gone quickly. Alistair didn’t want Rebecca to see it. Nor ever know the reason why. He’d see to that. But that tickle of worry that brought the frown so quickly hidden didn’t go away.
The frown came back late that evening, long after Rebecca had been put to bed, tucked in, and kissed goodnight. While Rebecca hadn’t seen that first frown, Juliette, Alistair’s wife of six years, saw this one. “What’s the matter, Sweetheart? Frowns do not suit you.”
Alistair forced a smile onto his face. “Nothing, my dear. Nothing at all for you to worry about.”
That was good enough for Juliette. She had the simple faith of a young woman married to a much older man. A successful man. A man that took her out of a horrid life and made her a lady. And gave her anything she asked for.
When he went into the office the following Monday, the cheerful good-mornings, a donut and a cup of coffee, had him in a good mood. For a while. Then all three of his foremen and the office manager asked to meet with him.
He didn’t frown during the short meeting. At the end of it, he told the two men and two women, “I’ll think about this. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.” When they were gone and the door to his office closed, the frown was back.
Most of those working for him, according to the foremen and his office manager, wanted a schedule change to four ten-hour days. The rising cost of commuting, with fuel prices being the biggest factor, was the stated reason.
Alistair had noticed the price of gasoline going up, but had paid it little mind. He always used his American Express card to fill up, and the prices never really registered on him. Even when he reviewed the American Express bill each month, the charges for gasoline didn’t seem all that far out of line with his, and Juliette’s, spending habits.
Deciding to call corporate Human Relations about the requests, he picked up and dialed the telephone himself, after looking up the number. “Hello. George?” Alistair asked when George Higgens answered.
Alistair noted the weariness in George’s voice when he answered. “If this is about the packet, there’s nothing I can do about it. It came down from above.”
“Packet? What packet, George? What are you talking about?”
“You don’t have the packet yet? Well, nuts! Okay. You’ll be getting, should already have, a packet outlining the downsizing we’re in the process of doing.”
“Downsizing?” Alistair felt a chill go down his back.
“Read the packet,” George said again. He then hung up, stunning Alistair. He and George had joined the company about the same time and remained close. This simply wasn’t like George.
Slowly Alistair hung up the telephone and leaned back in his chair. Suddenly he got up and went to the reception area to ask about the packet form corporate headquarters. The FedEx woman was there, delivering. Alistair hung back, suddenly not wanting anyone on staff to know he was anxious about anything.
He plastered a smile on his face and went over to the coffee pot, instead of asking about the recent delivery.
“Oh, here is a letter package from HQ, Mr. Sinclair,” Julie, the receptionist said. “Wow! Marked personal and urgent.” She handed the large envelope to Alistair when he walked over, without any coffee.
Trying to act unconcerned, Alistair took the envelope and went back to his office. He almost locked the door, but decided that would be a dead giveaway that something was up. Alistair opened the envelope and began to read.
Alistair re-read the entire thing after going through it once, and then read several sections a third time. His stomach was a cold pit. Downsizing probably wasn’t an accurate word to describe what the corporation was planning.
Though he wasn’t hungry, far from it, Alistair went out at his usual time. He wanted time away from the office to think. It didn’t help. When he went back to the office, he called the office manager in and went over what had to be done to let go a fourth of his employees.
Jillian was shocked. “But sir! These people! They all have families! They’re barely making it now. If they lose the job here… Isn’t there any other way?”
Alistair almost showed her the packet for Corporate. But something told him not to. It wasn’t Jillian’s place to question the Corporate decisions he quickly decided. Harshly… Actually, very harshly, for Alistair, he reminded her that the matter was confidential at the moment. He wanted her to do the final checks herself, as the payroll clerk was one of those he had to lay off.
After that day, going to work was no longer such a pleasure for Alistair. Especially a month later when he called to talk to George and found out George was no longer with the corporation. To top it off, that very same day he got the notice that his pay was being cut. Significantly. And if he wanted to keep his job, production had better pick up, despite the circumstances.
Alistair had to pull money from his retirement savings to pay the mortgage for the house, the retirement property he was buying, and the payments on their three vehicles, the boat, and the motorhome when he paid the bills that month.
A few days after that, Alistair sat down to have a Sunday breakfast with Juliette and Rebecca. He was startled to hear Rebecca say, “Mommy. I don’t like this cereal. Why can’t I have the one I like?”
It was when he started to look at Juliette that he noticed there were only two strips of bacon on his plate, and none on Juliette’s. “Juliette?” he asked.
She started to cry and ran from the room. “Don’t worry, Honey,” Alistair told Rebecca. “You’ll have your regular cereal tomorrow. Just be a good girl and eat this just for today. Okay?”
“Okay, Daddy.”
That was simple enough, Alistair thought. Hopefully it would be the same with Juliette. It wasn’t. When he found her in the living room, sitting on one of the expensive antique chairs, her head in her hands, she was crying even harder.
“Sweetheart? What is it? What has you so upset?”
She looked up, and Alistair waited patiently for her to compose herself. He knelt down by the chair and took one of her hands in his. It was ice cold.
Finally, looking down at her lap, Juliette said, “I’ve tried so hard, Alistair! Really I have! But things are so expensive now! I didn’t have enough money left in the household budget, and they wouldn’t take the card, and I had to leave things at the check out, and I had only got cheaper things… Oh, Alistair! It was so embarrassing.”
Alistair took her into his arms and held her too him. “Don’t you worry, Darling. I’ll get the card thing straightened out. In the meantime I’ll put more money in the household account, and up the amount. You’ll never have to be embarrassed like that again. I promise.”
Later that day Alistair went through his financial accounts with a fine toothcomb. He was shocked. Both of his platinum credit cards, one ostensibly with no limit, had put his accounts on hold until the balances were paid down.
He did an online bank transfer, moving more money from his retirement account to the household account, and the regular checking account. Between making the earlier payments from the retirement account, and now these transfers, Alistair felt yet another chill go down his back. He was going to have to do it every month. His reduced salary was simply no longer enough to cover all his monthly debts. Even after stopping the 401(k) contribution he was significantly short.
Without telling Juliette, Alistair put the Cadillac SUV, the boat, and the motorhome all up for sale. It was a week before he got even one offer. That was on the boat, and the caller was only willing to pay half of what Alistair was asking. Angry at the insult, Alistair slammed the telephone receiver down.
Three months later, he wound up taking even less than that first offer for the boat. At least he got three-quarters of his initial asking price for the motorhome and the SUV. Juliette cried as the new owners came and picked up the boat, motorhome, and SUV within hours of each other on a Saturday. Though they had used them very little, they were some of the things she’d dreamed of when a little girl.
It still wasn’t enough to keep up with the other bills. Every month Alistair had to draw from the retirement fund, as the prices of the things Alistair insisted Juliette continue to buy skyrocketed. Alistair put up the retirement property for sale.
The business wasn’t doing well. People were buying few luxury goods and that meant the parts that went into them were no longer required at the same rate. The four day week Alistair employees had wanted came to pass, but not four tens. Everyone was reduced to four eights. Two months later wages were cut ten percent across the board. That included another reduction for Alistair.
He began to loose his second best employees, his very best having got the axe the first layoff, since they were the highest paid. As he tried to replace employees no longer willing to work for what the corporation was paying, all Alistair could find were desperate people willing to work for next to nothing, just to have a job. And while they were desperate, they weren’t skilled. Quality began to suffer and Alistair was called onto the carpet in a video conference.
He took it like a sheep. He didn’t even try to defend himself. After the harangue was over, Alistair simply walked away and didn’t look back. The sale of Juliette’s sports car paid the mortgage one month. Alistair put the house on the market and began looking for something much smaller and more economical. He even signed up for temp work.
After one partial payment and then two straight missed payments, Alistair and his small family were evicted. He had enough money to move them into a by-the-week residential motel.
Then came the war talk as Alistair eked out a living working for McDonalds as a burger flipper. Alistair had quit paying any attention to the news. It was too depressing. So the announcement that the nation was going on alert came as quite a surprise to him.
When he got home after his late shift, Juliette was waiting up for him. She was terrified. The paper was on the old, scarred, table in what passed as the kitchen in the old motel room. It was open to the pages that showed how to build an expedient fallout shelter.
“Oh, Alistair! What do we do if they bomb us with nuclear bombs? In the good house, we had the basement. What are we going to do if war starts?”
Alistair didn’t have an answer. He took Juliette in his arm and held her until she fell asleep. He carried her to the bed in the lone bedroom, careful not to wake Rebecca in her makeshift bed on one side of the room.
It was a long time before Alistair fell asleep. And it was a troubled sleep, at that. Things were even worse the next morning. The large invasion fleet China had been building began to move. Not toward Taiwan, as expected, but toward Australia.
While Alistair stayed at home and slept, Juliette took Rebecca and went to the store. Alistair had just come out of the shower when there was a knock on the door of the apartment.
“Must have forgotten her keys,” Alistair muttered as he walked over to open the door, with just a towel around his waist.
It wasn’t Juliette. It was two uniformed police officers. One asked, “Are you Alistair Sinclair?”
When Alistair nodded, already feeling a little faint, the second officer said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Sinclair. We have some bad news…”
For the first time in his life, Alistair fainted. He came too on the ragged sofa and took the glass of water one of the officers handed him. “Do you have someone that can come and stay with you for a little while,” she asked.
Alistair shook his head. “Tell me. Tell me what happened.”
“Your car, the one your wife and child were in, was carjacked at gun point. From the eyewitness reports we have, your wife tried to drive away. The carjackers opened fire with handguns and both your wife and child were shot and died at the scene.”
Alistair was trembling. “Sir, perhaps you should get dressed and let us take you down to the emergency room…”
“Can’t afford it,” Alistair said softly. “Can’t afford anything. How am I going to pay for the funeral?”
“I’m sorry, Sir. We can’t help you there. Are you sure you don’t want to…”
“Get out! Just get out and leave me to my misery!”
The two officers looked at one another and then made a silent exit, leaving Alistair to his grief.
A week later Alistair walked to the McDonalds where he worked. The Cadillac had been repossessed while in the impound yard pending the final outcome of the investigation. He still had the ticket issued to him for not having insurance on the car at the time of the carjacking.
He received condolences from his much younger co-workers when he clocked in. One, more than a bit insensitive, said, “Cheer up, Pops. Things have to get better now. Can’t get any worse, hunh?”
Alistair didn’t hit the guy, but it was close. He finally muttered, “Sure. Things have to get better.”
The Chinese response to the US moving four carrier groups toward Australia as the Chinese fleet neared their planned invasion point, came at ten minutes after two in the morning. Ten minutes after Alistair got off shift and was slowly walking home, without even enough in his pocket to take a bus.
The HEMP devices detonated high over the four quadrants of the US blacked out almost the entire country in an instant. Alistair found himself standing in the darkness, with just a few automobile headlights illuminating the area. Most of the vehicles were stationary, though Alistair saw one old pickup, used as a lawn and garden service truck, swerve around the stalled cars and speed off, going Alistair didn’t have a clue.
He suddenly had a flash of memory, of Juliette, something he kept trying to suppress. This one was of her looking at the plans in the newspaper of expedient shelters for basements. Alistair stiffened suddenly, seeing a vagrant riding a bicycle, a tiny red LED light flashing at the rear of the large pack balanced on the carrier over the rear wheel.
Alistair didn’t hesitate. He ran at the man, shoved the bicycle over. Man and pack both went flying. Picking up the bicycle, Alistair gave it a push, swung his leg over and took off pedaling, the vagrant screaming obscenities at him.
He knew just where he was going. Besides the instructions for expedient shelters in basements, there had been a list of reasonably good shelter areas around town at the end of the story. Of course, Alistair didn’t know it, but that list had cost two reporters and an editor their jobs. Those with the shelter areas had not appreciated being put in the limelight.
Alistair wasn’t the only person that had read that section on the story, despite it being on a page well back in the paper. But he was one of the very first people to show up city hall. “Didn’t you bring anything at all with you?” the harried looking woman standing at the entrance of the city hall, flanked by two police officer.
“I just got off work when it happened,” Alistair explained. “I haven’t been home.” Alistair was careful not to add that he didn’t have anything much at the residential motel to bring, anyway, except a blanket. He ate his only two meals of the day at the McDonalds where he worked.
“I’m a good worker,” Alistair said, hating the begging tone he used. What did he have to live for, anyway? He almost turned around to leave when the woman asked, “You have any managerial experience?”
Alistair stopped the turn before he really started it. “Yes. Extensive. You have something that needs done?”
“I do. Someone to help me keep track of the swarms of people that we expect to show up. Like you. Only a bit later.”
“I can work any paper or computer managerial system still in common use.” It wasn’t a lie, but Alistair knew it was stretching the true a little.
“Well… You’re here. And if you show me you can use a spreadsheet, and I can read your handwriting, you can stay.”
Alistair didn’t breathe the sigh of relief he felt like. He was actually a whiz using both paper and computer spreadsheets. And his penmanship was beyond reproach.
The woman led Alistair into the building, to a simple desk. “Here is what I have at the moment. Take the information as we let people come in.”
Alistair looked down at the large green pages of a ledger book. There were a dozen names listed, with addresses and various other information, including the time they arrived at the shelter. He noted the far right column. Radiation exposure before entry.
“Okay. Sit down and put your data in,” the woman said, and then looked over at another police officer standing nearby. “Scan him.”
The officer used what Alistair discovered later was a radiation survey meter. It was silent and the officer said, “Clean.”
“Mark it,” the woman said. She handed Alistair a pen looking device. “Pin that on your shirt. Now, anyone that doesn’t want to cooperate, doesn’t get in. No exceptions. I don’t expect you to enforce it. That’s what the three officers are here for. Just let one of them know if someone is giving you a problem.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Alistair found himself saying to the woman. She was at least fifteen years younger than he, but she exuded authority. The way he once had. She hurried back outside and Alistair filled in his information.
He looked at the pen like device and the officer with the survey meter said, “It’s a dosimeter. Shows accumulated dosage. Just in case you’re exposed by fallout on some of the people coming in.”
Alistair shrugged. So be it. He looked back down at the ledger taking careful note of the various column headings so he could ask the questions needed to get the information. His eyes widened slightly when he saw the columns for guns, drugs, and alcohol.
There were several large trash totes lined up outside, three for guns, one for ammunition, one for alcohol, and a cardboard box for the prescriptions. Police officers checked everyone and made sure they complied with the restrictions on entry. Much like the guns, ammunition, alcohol, and drugs that were collected, the peoples’ pets, including service animals, were collected outside and taken away by animal control officers.
It wasn’t very long before Alistair had his first ‘client’ of the night. It went smooth as butter and Alistair felt good. That was the last time he had a good feeling.
.People were angry to have had their possessions taken. Alistair tried to tell them that he was recording all the information so they could be returned at a later date.
Alistair lost count of the number of times he was yelled at, screamed at, cried at, and even lunged at. All he had to do was give a little signal to the officers standing nearby and they handled the situation from there.
At four in the morning, the radiation scan on someone produced a reading. Just a minor amount, but the family was hustled off to be decontaminated. It became the norm. Every person that came in had been exposed to fallout.
There were quiet, but earnest discussions, just out of Alistair’s earshot at seven in the morning. What Alistair did hear were the murmurings of a large crowd outside the door. He simply stayed at his desk as the totes were brought in and a line of police took their place at the entry doors of the City Hall.
“You… What’s your name?” asked the same woman that had put him on the desk.
“Alistair Sinclair,” Alistair said. He was fearful for a minute that she was going to tell him to go join the others outside.
Instead, she motioned to him to follow her and said, “Bring the ledger. It’s time to close the doors.
“But…” Alistair said, looking at the front doors.
The woman gave him a hard look. “You coming. Or staying here to die?”
“I’m coming. What’s your name, by the way?” he said as he trotted to join her.
“Sharon Stone. And any jokes will get you thrown out.”
It took Alistair a confused minute to connect the woman’s name to the famous actress. He wasn’t about to make any jokes. Any of them would have been cruel to this Sharon Stone. Alistair followed Sharon down two flights of steps and then through a door guarded by two more police officers.
Alistair didn’t really know one gun from the other, but the ones the two police officers were holding looked very dangerous. The man and woman, in full riot gear, looked like they were willing to use them.
There was a milling mob inside the shelter area. Alistair saw several people trying to get people organized, with little success. He jumped suddenly when a gun went off almost right at his ear. The sound brought silence after it.
Sharon began to give orders in a clear, controlled voice. With the help of the shelter stewards the mob turned into a crowd intent on not getting thrown out of the shelter, and getting the best place to sleep.
Alistair stayed close to Sharon. She went through a door that opened from the basement utilities room into a small office. She sat down at the desk it contained and asked Alistair to dictate the information from the ledger so she could input it into the computer.
“You look tired, Sharon. Are you sure you don’t want me to do this? I’m quite good at data entry.”
He could see the hesitation, but he also saw how tired she was, and the strain she was trying to hide.”
“Very well. You can enter it. But if I find any mistakes, you are so out of here.”
Alistair nodded and switched places with her. She took the sofa and he sat behind the desk, propped up the journal, and started typing. The staccato sound he produced on the keyboard did nothing to keep Sharon from falling asleep on the sofa.
A small smile curling his lips, Alistair continued to type, taking the same care he would handling radioactive material. He was not going to get thrown out of the shelter. He had discovered he had a very strong desire to live, after all.
Alistair made sure he made himself useful to Sharon, continuing his duties as official fact recorder of the shelter, as he shadowed her on her rounds through the shelter space. He wrote down whatever she thought important. People with special needs, unruly occupants, babies born, deaths, and on and on and on.
He made sure she ate and drank her ration of food and water. That there were workable lights in the office. He saw the hesitation in her eyes when he finally got some sleep. On the sofa in her small office. But she didn’t tell him to leave and Alistair made the room his own, with Sharon just a tenant using the desk and files.
Being the official recorder of meetings, he was privy to the smallest detail of what was happening in the shelter. For no good reason he could think of, he took special note of the handful of people ejected from the shelter for causing trouble.
Alistair was careful not to overstep his bounds, other than using the office for his private sleeping quarters, nor ask for special favor. He was in a position to abuse the authority vested in him, but he refused the temptations to get a larger ration of food, or an extra bottle of water.
He’d been a very good manager for the company he’d worked for before he walked away. He was a better manager of people by the time the shelter stay was over. He volunteered for the first expedition outside the shelter, when the radiological defense officer announced in that morning’s staff meeting that it was safe to go out, if precautions were taken.
Alistair went as historian and radio operator, but was issued the same equipment that the others were. That included a gun belt, holster, pistol, and four spare magazines. He’d never handled a gun in his life before, but faked his way through the process of showing he knew what he was doing by imitating those around him.
He nearly lost his lunch into the respirator he wore at the sight of all the bodies they found everywhere they went. There were people out in the streets, in business buildings, in private residences, and when they ventured into the wooded areas outside of town, they found them there, too.
Many had died violently. Others, from their final pose, peacefully. There were hundreds of pets and wild animals dead, too. But many had lasted long enough, without other food available, to savage many of the dead bodies.
Like the others that did the early work, Alistair hardened his heart to the tragedy, though the sight of a dead little girl brought him to his knees, and tears to his eyes.
Finally people were allowed to leave the shelter to cope on their own. Actually, in many cases, they were forced to leave as the stocks of food and water that had been salvaged in the early expeditions to extend the stay time in the shelter ran out, too. And the day finally came that Alistair was told he would have to leave.
Sharon at least looked apologetic about the dismissal, but made it clear there was no appeal. Only five of the people that ran the shelter would stay there to liaise with county, state, and federal officials when they were finally able to get to the city. The few reports they’d received during the shelter stay indicated that they were getting off easy, compared to many places. Those places would get the most help, and get it first. Alistair left with that piece of information, with many other bits and pieces that he’d accumulated.
Something else he left the shelter with, without getting permission for, was the equipment he’d been issued when he went outside. Including the pistol and spare ammunition. And though he thought long and hard about it, and backed out time after time, Alistair finally took a week’s worth of food and water to see him through until he could decide how he was going to make a life for himself. That was in addition to the three days rations everyone got when they left the shelter.
Despite not expecting anyone to actually check, he made the appropriate notations in the food and water accounts to cover the items he took. With a pack made from a pair of discarded work pants too worn out to wear that one of the other shelter occupants gave him and showed him how to make, Alistair stepped outside the city hall and walked off into a new world, with a new attitude slowly developing.
Copyright 2008
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