James Funfer

“Many years before any of you were born, the world was filled with humans.”

The bonfire crackles, and in its glow I survey the faces of the bright-eyed Kawitzen children, listening intently to Amelia’s story. Although the winter is mild on the west coast of North America’s 49th parallel, it still gets damp and chilly at night.

“They spread out from their home in Africa and covered the planet, until there was no place you could not find them, not even the frozen lands of the north and south poles.”

The ratio of kids to adults is off-kilter in the Kawitzen tribe, just like most places we visit. Echoes of The Doom are still felt here. Survivors looking to be fruitful and multiply still have to come to grips with the horrors of their offspring not always inheriting their immunity.

“But these children of the Goddess did not simply spread and multiply. For in their wake they brought with them what they called civilization. And what is civilization?”

As a bunch of chubby little hands shoot into the air I roll my eyes and look at Father. If I wanted something this heavy-handed I’d read Ayn Rand, my eyes say to him. He’s busy reading something by firelight and doesn’t notice me, but I’m sure he’d have a few choice things to say about The Doom if he wasn’t so intent on being polite to his new girlfriend.

“Civilization is when you think that some people should get more than other people,” a girl says. We’ve found the pedant in the group, folks. “Civilization uses the gifts of the Goddess without giving back to the planet. Civilization made the Goddess send the Doom so that the planet would stop dying.”

Why did I sit here to get an agenda-driven history lesson instead of going off with the other teenagers? I ask myself. You wanted to meet new people, Regan. Congrats. Eight brainwashed thumb-suckers and the Queen of the Hippies.

I remind myself that I’m trying to avoid Mason. I’m still shocked they let him back in the tribe despite his constant need to betray everything – up to and including his own dignity – but then again, the Kawitzen seem to have forgiveness down to Jesus-like proportions. Most post-Doom village cults are a danger to others; this one seems to be more of a danger to itself.

“That’s right Harmony,” Amelia says, bringing my focus back to the present. What’s going on? I ask myself. Oh, yeah. Back-patting for taking the blue pill. I accidentally laugh out loud at my secret Matrix joke that nobody would get.

“Is something funny, Regan?” Amelia asks. It’s creepy because she doesn’t sound offended.

“It’s nothing,” I mutter. “Please carry on.”

“No, please,” she insists. “You and your father are well-travelled. Do you have further insight into the fall of civilization?”

I sigh, looking to Father pleadingly for support but he’s still reading his book. A lifetime of knowing his habits tells me that he’s actually listening, but he’s not going to back me up on this one.

I sigh. “You were born well before The Doom, right Amelia?”

She smiles. “Guilty; I’m no spring chicken.”

“So you remember that The Doom was a human-made virus, right? Not some book of revelations or Gaia hypothesis plague?”

Amelia regards me calmly but there is something new in her eyes. That’s right, I think. This road scholar knows better than your spoon-fed, homespun religion, and you have to respect that, don’t you?

“According to the mainstream media at the time, yes. Sources proven to be less than credible.”

The kids’ faces turn from left to right and back again like they’re watching tennis.

“Um, and according to him,” I say, pointing at Father. “Your saviour-guy. And more than a few well-documented sources. And…”

Father slams his book shut so loudly that it is heard over the crackle of flames, over our argument. He stands and gives me the you-know-what-you-did stare, except I have no idea what I did.

“Can I talk to you for a moment, daughter of mine?”

I stare at him from across the flames. “Sure.” I grit my teeth. “Dad. Of mine.”

As we leave the area around the bonfire I catch Amelia’s eye. She’s got this look like: ‘how would you know about The Doom, Regan? You weren’t born yet’. I just want to punch her, but I don’t generally throw fists around when I’m a guest.

I have punched one of Father’s girlfriends before, though.

Father stops walking when we’re hidden deep in one of the rows of the Kawitzen’s winter garden.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asks.

“Right now? Being admonished for inscrutable reasons, apparently.”

“You’re not going to change their minds, Regan.”

I fold my arms, staring up at the cloudy night sky so I don’t have to look at his stupid accusatory face.

“I cannot believe you’re not backing me up on this, Dad. I mean…goddess plagues? Civilization pared down to a concept that a five-year-old thinks it can understand? Hey, we’ve seen our fair share of cults, but…”

“But nothing,” he counters. “They’re peaceful. You wanted to trade with them and meet new people. Well, here we are. Everyone gets to decide how they rebuild the world. This is how the Kawitzen are doing it, and I’d say they’re not doing too bad of a job.”

“Doesn’t the truth matter?” I raise my voice with the hope that someone will eavesdrop and learn something. “Or are you too busy trying to impress your new girlfriend?”

“She’s not,” he says, laughing, “my girlfriend. Civilization was a monster, Regan. You might think you understand what it was, and perhaps you do better than most who remember it, but really it was a juggernaut of destruction. It was the selfish soul of humanity, the manifestation of our biological instincts dressed up in the trappings of fairness and progress. It was leading us toward ecological disaster. It was an arbitrary system of numbers that gave incredible power to a select few and essentially enslaved the rest. It was the pursuit of knowledge above all else which brought us to The Doom.”

“But…”

“Don’t interrupt. Their goddess is a metaphor, yes, but these people are trying to teach their children not to make the same mistakes we did, so I’d say it’s a step in the right direction. Because the hard truth of the matter, Regan, is that if The Doom hadn’t come to the world, we would have destroyed it anyway, with nuclear warheads or the greenhouse effect or oceans full of garbage.”

“Okay,” I say. “Thanks for not being an asshole about it, Dad. So you’re saying The Doom was a good thing, now?”

He gets that quiet, contemplative face like he does sometimes when The Doom gets brought up. Like he’s remembering horrific things that, to this day, he won’t tell me about. Bodies piled in the streets and burning cities and wanton violence kind of stuff.

Then we hear the sound of a fire hall siren.

“It’s the League!” someone shouts in the distance. “Get to the towers!”

“Really starting to hate this League,” I mutter to Father as we race back to the RV for some firepower.

“Tell me about it,” he says.

The man in the woollen cap raises his rifle. Knowing Father, he’s got the pistol in his duster pocket pointed at the guy. Mason is on the floor, still pleading silently with his stupid, snotty face. I’ve got my shotgun in my hands, hidden just out of sight. It’s not so much a Mexican standoff as a two-on-one with an extra army outside for the outnumbered guy.

“Ok, what’s going on here?” Wool-cap demands.

“Just calm down, my friend,” Father says in his best negotiation voice. It’s the voice that always gets the best bartering price on goods. It’s the voice that talked Reverend Jones down from burning me at the stake. It’s the voice that…admittedly, didn’t work so well against the angry bikers in Sin City, but that’s a different story. I still can’t believe Father brought me along that time.

“I’m calm, I’m calm,” Woolly says. “Just wondering why you have a guy tied…oh, it’s Mason.” He lowers his rifle. “Thought some off-islanders’d be an easy mark, eh, kid?”

“Cale, they’re crazy, ya gotta help me,” Mason bleats. I watch with satisfaction as Cale rolls his eyes.

“Don’t listen to a word he says,” Cale advises. “He’s slippery as soap, can’t be trusted. Does dirty work for the League, besides.”

“Yeah, about that,” Father says, scratching the back of his neck as he lets go of the gun in his pocket, “I’d like to know more about the League. And your tribe.”

Cale nods, smiling broadly as he takes a gander about the RV. “Well I’d say you’ve got extra stuff to trade. Tell you what: why don’t you follow us back to the village? I can introduce you to our priestess, er, leader, and we can trade goods and information.”

“It’s a trap!” Mason shouts.

“Dad, can we gag him?” I ask. Guy changes tunes more than I do when I’m checking out a scavenged mix-CD.

***

We turn around, heading north, following Cale and his crew up the highway. A part of me hopes we’ll run into Mason’s ‘friends’ along the way, but the journey proves to be violence-free, with the exception of Mason straining his wrists to bleeding against his bonds and then whining about it.

Father still doesn’t let me gag him, even after I crank Nightwish to drown out his blubbering. No, make that boogering. I’m sure Father wants to see what else Jar-of-snot will reveal about the League, but I just can’t take it anymore. Epic Norwegian Metal is the only possible reprieve.

The caravan leads us into a literal village. It’s not one of those sad ragged-tents-and-goats outfits, either. It’s a cleaned-up pre-Doom suburbia with a great big farm in the middle which I’m betting was once a soccer field. Mason starts freaking out again, screaming that they’re going to ‘tie him to the maypole and leave him for the crows’ and that if we get out of the RV we’re probably dead, too, but I just ignore him. I know an ambush when I see one.

The roadblock was a possible ambush. This place is kids running around with wooden swords and aluminum foil armour, playing some make-believe game about the good ol’ days when the scariest disease out there was the bubonic plague. This village is farmers in hand-sewn work-clothes tending to vegetable crops, standing up to wave at their returning scouts, or army or whatever they happen to be.

This place is, I’m betting Father will mutter any minute, ‘Hippie-ville’.

“Oh, it’s a hippie commune,” Father exclaims from the passenger seat, leaving out the ‘ville’. “They’d be more likely to try and put you on a vegan diet to suppress that aggression, Mason, rather than kill you.”

“Uh-huh,” he sniffles, “and their guns are just for show.”

I’m betting the guns are for protection, but I decide to wait and see what the locals say about Mason and the League. Appearances can be deceiving, especially when it comes to local leadership.

Cale and company park outside of what looks like an English-style pub. Minus our truck, we only take up five parking spots. Everybody clambers out and Father hands Mason over to the Kawitzen, despite his screaming protestations.

“Mason’s back!” one of the tin-foil knights exclaims, and suddenly they’ve surrounded him, chanting and taunting him with their weapons. Surprisingly, the children seem to calm him down. I hang back and watch as Father chats with Cale.

“We captured you again,” the tallest boy exclaims, prodding Mason with his sword-stick.

“The only thing you’ve ever caught was the permanent stink of farts,” Mason retorts. The children giggle. “Those strangers captured me,” he says, gesturing his head in my direction, “and you’d better keep away from them. They’re from the mainland and don’t believe in the Goddess. They’d probably sell you all into slavery if they got the chance.”

I raise an eyebrow as the children scream and scatter. The tall boy with the sword glares at me like he’s about to have a moment of bravery, until I wink at him. He and his courage flee the parking lot.

“Well you got one thing right,” I tell Liar-Pants Mason. “I don’t believe in your stupid goddess who definitely doesn’t exist and is just a figment of a small-village post-Doom imagination, probably meant to help explain…”

“Regan,” Father says. “Let’s go.” He gestures for me to follow him and Cale. Mason is led away by another member of the scouts, to some unknown fate. Based on the fact that he’s no longer stuck on ‘I’m gonna die’ like a warped vinyl record, I assume that he’s pretty well-known to the Kawitzen, and that they don’t generally execute people.

He seems like one of them, I think. I want to ask Cale about it, but he and Father are talking in hushed voices. We head into the vegetable field.

“Where are we going?” I ask them. “Or is that information as secret as the rest of your conversation?”

“We’re just talking shop, Regan,” Father explains. “Not everyone around here appears interested in the finer aspects of gun collection and maintenance.”

“No, they appear interested in vegetable collection and maintenance,” I reply. “Hey, hat-guy. Did you know that you’re named after a vegetable?”

“My name is with a ‘c’,” he says, deadpan. “And it’s called a toque.”

I blink. “You just made that word up.”

We reach what I can only describe as a palatial yurt in the middle of the field. I’d been hoping to see Wizard of Oz-style guards chanting Oh-ee-oh or maybe two sun-bronzed dudes fanning some lady on a lounge chair out front, but no such luck. Clearly the Kawitzen are comfortable breaking all the rules of post-apocalyptic tribal hierarchies.

“Amelia?” Cale calls into the dark recesses of the tent. “Are you in?”

The woman who emerges can only be described as ‘granola-chic’. Her wavy silver hair is almost a mantle. She’s wearing a wrap-style skirt and hemp tunic, very down-to-earth, but her fingers are covered in more gold and silver than I’ve seen outside of a cracked safe. She’s got this big banged-copper medallion around her neck with an ensconced amethyst, in the shape of a crescent moon. She glances at Cale for just a second before fixing her eyes on Father.

“By the Goddess,” she says, stepping forward and cupping Father’s face with both hands. “Our saviour has come.”

“I think she likes you Dad,” I point out.

My urge to punch Mason fades, along with my urge to do anything else to him: kiss, admonish for breaking my CDs, teach to be less shitty. Instead I just feel a mild mixture of pity, revulsion and curiosity. How could someone so initially attractive be such a wussy jerk? I decide that there is only one way to find out.

“So what made you decide to be such a wussy jerk?” I ask as I turn another corner on the cracked and debris-filled road. Mason shifts away from me, trying to hide his look of shame.

“Keep your eyes on the treeline,” Father tells me. “For more of those League bastards.”

“Roger,” I reply as Father clambers into the back with Mason’s rifle. He looks like he’s going to tweak it some more. “Hey. Masonjar. I’m talking to you.”

“I told you I was going to die and you don’t even care.”

“Wow, I asked you a question and you didn’t even answer. You are currently alive. So, following normal logic, you don’t know for certain how and when you are going to die. And why should I care? You tried to trick, ambush and kill both of us. It doesn’t exactly create a feeling of loyalty.”

Past the abandoned rural houses, the road returns to the highway. I take it south, back to the big city at the bottom end of the island. We pass dilapidated gas stations and rusted-out cars as we go.

“I wasn’t going to kill you,” Mason insists.

“Oh, so you were bluffing? You were going to let your friends do the dirty work? Wow, you’re just making yourself sound better and better, Jar-head.”

“You think I had a choice?” Mason’s face explodes into a fresh display of mucous, spittle and tears. Oh, very sexy, I think. “I try to leave, they’ll kill me. I try to warn anyone, they’ll kill me. I was going to try and tell you, but then you…”

“Let me stop you right there,” I interrupt him. “First of all: if you want somebody’s help, pointing a gun at them? Probably the worst way to ask for it. Sounds like your employers, uh…sounds like you need to change your…hmm…” I stumble over my words. “Hey, Dad? Help me out here. I’m not good with job-related idioms.”

“Sounds like you should take out employment insurance,” Father quips from the back.

“Ha!” I say. Mason isn’t laughing, however. He’s just leaking out every hole in his face some more. “…Dad, what do you mean by insurance?” Sometimes his pre-Doom terms go over my head. “Never mind,” I say, turning my attention back to Mason. “You always have a choice. Unless you want to talk determinism.” Mason looks at me like I’m speaking an alien language. “Determinism. Cause and effect. The belief that…” I suddenly remember that not everybody stockpiles books and data, and the literacy rate has dropped pretty sharply in some areas, post-Doom.

As I glance back at the road, the rest of the sentence dies in my throat.

“Dad?” I call out. “Code thirty-three. Point two.”

“Roadblock? Are they armed?”

Even at a hundred metres, I can clearly see the firearms they carry. A dozen women and men span the highway ahead, carrying automatic rifles. One of them appears to be brandishing grenades. Behind them is a row of vehicles, blocking the way south.

“Oh yeah.”

“Shit,” Father says. “Turn around.”

“Fuck, I’m gonna die,” Mason exclaims as I slam on the breaks and start spinning the wheel. I haven’t tipped Charlotte over yet, but it feels like I’m going to, every time I pull this manoeuvre.

“There’s no way your so called ‘buddies’ know you’ve semi-not-really-betrayed them already,” I say through gritted teeth as the brakes screech. “Are you telling me your League made a roadblock?”

“No,” Mason wails. “It’s the Kawitzen.” He can’t see through the window from where he’s tied up, but he sounds pretty certain.

“Oh,” I mutter. Charlotte careens on two tires, just for a moment, before plopping back down. Anything not lashed down clatters around on the floor of the RV. “They won’t shoot at us, will they?” I ask Mason.

“They will if they think you’re League,” Mason insists.

“Dad, we’re going to negotiate,” I call out.

“What? No we’re not. ”

“Yes we are.” I start turning Charlotte around again.

“No we’re not!” Mason shouts.

“Too late,” I say, flipping the loudspeaker switch before Father can stop me.

“PEOPLE OF THE KAWITZEN TRIBE,” I say, loving the way my voice booms. “WE COME TO YOU IN PEACE. WE ARE NOT FROM THE LEAGUE.” I hit the brakes and come to a stop some thirty metres away from the road block, hoping that the tribe won’t open fire.

Their shocked expressions are so great that I find myself wishing I’d brought my camera up to the cockpit. Dad is beside me suddenly, staring out the window at the assembled row of armed people in their piecemeal clothing.

“I said no,” he mutters. I can tell by his expression that the admonishment is mostly an afterthought; Father is already calculating new plans in his head based on possible outcomes of my rash decision. Admittedly, it’s not the first time something like this has happened. I think he’s getting used to it.

A man with a woollen cap and salt-and-pepper beard approaches Charlotte while the other tribals keep their weapons at the ready. The guy with the grenades looks anxiously from the explosive in his hand to our vehicle, perhaps realizing that he’s a bit too close for his weapon to be a good idea. Dejected, he lowers his arm and his expression goes from zealous to impatiently wary.

The man reaches Charlotte and – I can hardly believe it – actually knocks on the door. I can’t help but laugh. Father doesn’t think it’s so funny. He signals for me to remain at the wheel and he goes to meet the man at the side door.

“Alright, buddy, no funny business!” I hear the man say through the door. I look at Mason.

“What does ‘buddy’ mean?”

“Like a friend.”

“But they don’t even know each other!”

I’ve missed a part of the conversation, but I hear the door of the RV open and the man step inside.

“Welcome to my home,” Father says. “We’ve got a…”

“Help!” Mason cries, leaning over from his tied-up spot by the chair. He gives the man with the cap his best pleading expression. “These people are going to kill me!”