If only life could give you a second chance. The Documentors always say that The Collapse was a time that each human faced a test - and if anyone was watching as I took mine, I failed it miserably. How I ended up in Marathon still perplexes me; maybe I slipped through the cracks, maybe they saw something that would help them in the future. I suppose my ‘skills’ came in handy during their domination, but I still don’t feel like I belong. I’d leave; how I’d love to leave - but after being out there alone for so long, it’s a miracle I’m still alive now. Most of the townsfolk call me Quiet - and I am in no doubt that they don’t really trust me. And after my past, I can’t blame them.
I have no idea how many of them know my past - although I know the those who decide know. If they all found out, though... I’d probably be dead.
I came from Rice Lake, Wisconsin - I was an insurance claims investigator - a job that hardens you to verbal abuse; no matter what you’re investigating, people hate you. Just before the collapse, I was busy as hell. With people being forced out of their homes, and out of their jobs, there was a ton of bogus claims coming in - people trying to cash in before they lost everything. My insurance company took a no-holds-barred approach - we denied approximately 90% of claims, and were frequently in court when people sued us.
I was in my late 20's, investigating a claim, when my life changed. I entered a run down house just off of East Coleman street. I was summoned there to make a house call on an apparent back injury. I met the wife, a middle aged woman, and she took me to her husband, who was sitting on his couch, beer in one hand. He turned to me and grunted, while the wife offered me a drink of water. I politely refused, and addressed the man.
“Hello Mr. Bell,” I started.
“Not so fast, Mister.” He cut back. I saw him shift his weight, and made a mental note of how he didn’t cringe. I maintained a straight face and continued on.
“My report indicates you made a claim with us on July 3rd for a back injury.”
“That’s right!” He interjected again. “I was hurt laying bricks! Yous got a file with my name, and I got coverage!”
“I’m not disputing that, Mr. Bell.” I always referred to them by their last name, to avoid any kind of friendly banter that would sway my emotions. “However, on the claim you filled out, the date in question was June 29th when the injury occurred - however, when I checked with your supervisor he states that you were not on Brick duties that day. You were on cleanup.”
He swallowed, his face contorting and going slightly red. “Of course! Buts I helped with my co-workers to lay a few of the last bricks so’s we could go home on time!”
I glanced down at the file again. “Then why didn’t you state that in your claim?”
“I’s don’t got to state every little decision I makes!”
“Mr. Bell, your supervisor did not request for you to assist your co-workers in laying the bricks. From this report, filed by both you and the supervisor, I can make the conclusion that you acted on your own to lay the bricks.”
“What’s that got to do with anythings?”
“Because your supervisor did not hand you with the task of laying bricks, you acted outside of your duties. As a result, the company did not condone your actions, nor were they responsible for your actions. You acted on your own, without any consent from your supervisor, and thus waived the company’s responsibility to ensure you did not get injured. As it was a back injury, it’s a health issue, not safety, as the company maintained their responsibility to provide a safe workplace for those performing their requested tasks.”
“Hey!” He screeched, his voice half gargled with flem. “I’s was hurt on my job, and nows I can’t lay bricks for awhile! That’s workplace injuries if I’s ever heard them!”
“But you acted without consent of your supervisor.” I retorted.
I saw him lift his weight off the chair, pushing his hips out to balance his large beer gut. It was at that moment I knew he wasn’t even injured. I immediately sprung into action.
“Mr. Bell, the mere fact that you can stand without the assistance of crutches or a back brace indicates your back was not severely injured as you claim, if at all. These revelations only confirm what the report already reveals, and I am authorized to reject your claim for compensation.”
He strode forward, opening his mouth to shout behind me. I turned around just in time to see the wife swinging a glass at my head. I raised my hand to defend, but the glass shattered on the right side of my skull, passing my hand with swiftness. I felt the shards of glass dig deep into my skin, followed by an immediate burning pain across my cheek, forehead, ear, nose, and near my right eye. I collapsed to the ratty carpet, reaching to clutch my face, but only having the glass cut my palm. I felt the wetness of blood streak across my face, but quickly regained myself, realizing that another swing was coming my way. I rolled over just in time to see Bell dropping his fist on my head with speed I didn’t expect such a fat guy could have. I turned my neck away, avoiding the blow by less than an inch. I heard his fist thud into the floor while I rolled over, springing to my feet and striding towards what I assumed was their kitchen. Bell’s wife strode in after, with her husband in tow, but I had gained the upper hand. I grabbed one of the knives on the cutting board - at least a 7 inch blade - and grabbed Bell’s wife.
With a lighting quickness, I wrapped my arm around her body, and took the knife to her throat. Bell stopped in his tracks, his expression changing from rage to fear. His wife squirmed, but I pressed the knife a little closer, and she froze. I felt her muscles tense up all around her body, and I couldn’t help but let out a small, bloody-teethed smile
“Get the fuck back, Mr. Bell!” I said.
He took one step back.
“Make one move, and I swear to god, I’ll slit this bitch’s throat!”
He gave me a concerned stare back. I had even surprised myself with my actions, but I was so overcome by fear, aguish, the burning pain half my face felt, that I was in a totally different place mentally. I was well aware that the world was quickly falling apart; my work had assured me of it - but I had never expected things would have gone this far.
While my thoughts ran through my head, the three of us stood in the small kitchen, complete with the 1970's decor, sharing a tense silence. Finally, I snapped back to reality. “I don’t give a shit why you’re attacking me, but you’re letting me the fuck out of here!”
“We have our reasons.” Bell squeaked out.
“Shut up!” I screamed, pointing the knife at him.
It was that action that proved to be costly. In an instant, Bell reached behind himself, pulling out a handgun from his pants. How I hadn’t seen that I’ll never know, but I immediately ducked as he pointed the gun at me. I kept the mind to hold on to Bell’s wife, who was jerked down with me.
We were once again in a stalemate. I had Bell’s wife by the throat, Bell had a gun pointed at my head. “Let her go now, or I’ll shoot,” he proclaimed.
I blinked. “You’d have to be a good shot to get me and not her.”
“Trust me, the bullet’s got your name on it if it comes out of this gun.” He retorted.
I had to think fast - Bell’s wife wasn’t much of a threat to me, but I knew I had to take Bell out if I was ever going to get out of the house. However, it was Bell that triggered, so to speak, the outcome.
“Time’s up.” He said, and leaned forward to shoot. I ducked behind his wife and pushed her towards Bell at the same time. The gun went off, and I felt the blade cut through soft skin. There was a brief screech that was quickly gargled out; the bullet missed me and pegged the wall behind - Bell lunged forward to catch his falling wife - I regained my balance - and pulled the knife above my head, jumping for Bell.
The moment happened in slow motion. Bell looked up, wife still falling through his arms, and tried to quickly point his gun at me. He was too late, as I swung the knife down on his head, driving it into his forehead as the gun fired again, poking a hole through my suit’s jacket, but missing my skin. The knife didn’t dig far into his skull - I suppose the knife wasn’t strong enough - but Bell fell to the tiled floor on his back, knife dug into his head, his body convulsing on the floor. His wife, lying in a pool of blood, undoubtedly a combination of all three of ours, let out her last breath and ceased to move. I picked up the gun off the floor, right by Bell’s hand, and calmly leaned over him, blood still dripping off my face.
“Goodbye, Mr. Bell.” I said, and walked out as he struggled to keep himself alive.
I didn’t go back to work from that day on until the start of the collapse. Instead, rattled by what had happened, I started to fortify my house. I picked up tons of canned food, storing it in my basement, let my lawn grow, and started to think of how to stay alive. I didn’t answer my phone; my work fired me after three missed weeks - I didn’t hear anything from the police, who I assumed would eventually catch on to the murders I’d committed. I reinforced my windows with furniture - I started to build traps on my lawn at night - trip wires, mostly - and I started to collect whatever I could that I could use as a weapon. I didn’t have the best equipment - sharpened sticks, mostly - but I still had Bell’s handgun, and I had arranged some of the acids and cleaning products I owned and had bought into traps for anyone intruding.
There is no question in my mind that I was paranoid. I had convinced myself the Collapse was going to be hell on earth, and I was going to be damned if I was going to be taken down in the chaos. As the Collapse neared in early August, I stopped leaving the house, just watching the television and setting up more defence around my house. It was on August 7th - a day I remember very, very well - that the so-called ‘resistance’ entered into Rice Lake in full force. First, a gas station was blown up, followed by rioting - a building downtown was set on fire - houses were destroyed, people were shooting on the streets, looting was rampant, and the relatively small police force was overrun, the police station gutted. When the police went down, there was an outpouring of guns and riot gear. I stayed in my house the entire time, traps set, grass overgrown, car in my booby-trapped garage, TV on. I waited for the first person to try and break in. For the first week, nobody bothered me. However, while Rice Lake was quickly falling into chaos, some young punk tried to cash in. Too bad he picked my house.
I saw him the entire time - it was approximately 2AM, and he had snuck around my yard, back by the road. I perched myself near my upstairs window, out of sight. He crept past my first tripwire, likely by luck, as he didn’t look like the brightest kid. He didn’t get by my second wire, tripping over it and hitting the ground. For the most part, the trip wires were just to alert me people were there, as they were attached to bells. It worked perfectly, as the bell rang. The kid looked around, and then stood up and continued on. He reached my front door with no resistance - something that angered me, because I knew I had to set up better defence on my lawn. He tried the door, which was locked, and then worked his way to the side window.
I waited as he unlatched the window quite skilfully. The kid was probably getting really used to looting houses by now, and I hadn’t done anything with my windows to prevent them from getting picked. The window slid open, and I saw him take one last look around before starting to go inside. It was at this time I acted. I hustled from my spot upstairs, grasping my home-made club in the process. I slid down the banister of my staircase to avoid being loud until the end - and when I landed, he had just squeezed his whole body through the window. His eyes darted in my direction as I strode towards him - and I saw his surprise turn into fear - the club I wielded was covered with nails sticking outwards - and within three strides, I was beside him. He tried to duck out of the way, successfully avoiding my first swing. I rose my knee up immediately, feeling the crunch as it connected with his ribs. His body collapsed to the floor, and I swung the club over my head, and brought it down towards his.
He threw his hand up in defence. The nails dug deep into his hand, and the force of my attack still pushed his arm down. The club wrenched free from my hand as I heard him scream in agony. The nails were dug so deep into his hand, they’d pierced right through it, and now pulled the rest of the club along with it.
Not wasting any time, the passion of anger in my heart, I delivered a blow to his cheek with my fist. And another. And another. On and on I punched as hard as I could, until his face was a bloody pile of flesh and bone, and his body ceased to move. At this point, I pulled the club out from his hand, and gave it a pound into his chest - just to ensure that if he was unconscious, the nails would pierce his heart.
It was a brutal death - and I found myself absolutely covered in the kid’s blood, my eyes burning with intensity, my body sweating from adrenaline. It was a messy kill - but certainly, not the messiest.
For two months I stayed holed up in my house - resetting traps every time someone tried to overrun me - tossing bodies in my cellar - eventually killing everyone that even walked by my house in the day. The only time I didn’t attack was when it was daytime and there were clusters of people - those times, I stayed and waited. 99% of the time, they ran by my house, down the street, without even stopping to look. The army even rolled by at one point, but they were forced out of town when people waged massive attacks on them. I wasn’t sure for the longest of time, but I thought the resistance even managed to get the tank.
That fact became abundantly clear one day, approximately one year into my own hermitism - leaving the house only to get food and more weaponry - mostly from people I’d killed outside, and during the freezing winter when nobody went outside except me. It was the next summer; I was exhausted from no electricity, limited information about the outside world, and very unclean. My car still sat in my garage, unharmed - and very, very armed. When I picked up extra ammunition, I always put it in my car, so if I ever had to make a quick escape, I wouldn’t be defenceless. I awoke as I always did, gun by my side, to a loud rumbling noise. I crept to the window silently to look outside - and my face immediately dropped. Outside was some of the resistance, some in combat gear, others in plain clothes - but most importantly, the tank was staring right at my house. I wasted no time - I hurried out of the room, hearing the tank’s engine roar and the tracks start to move forward.
I don’t know how it happened, exactly, but someone must have tipped them off that I was there, and I was dangerous. But that tank was about to roll right through my front door, and if I didn’t act fast and time everything right, I was about to die. I was down the stairs and into my garage in a flash, right into my car. I had everything I needed to survive for about a month - canned food, fuel, and weapons. I heard the thundering crash and my house shake as the tank collided with the front door - things rattled and fell all around my garage, and I turned the engine on and prepared for the drive of my life. I revved the engine hard, and floored it - with no power, the garage door wasn’t going to open, but I was going to go through it. I sped into the door, smashing through it and definitely running over someone. I looked out the passenger window to see the tank buried in my house - and surprised faces on my lawn. My hand threw up my gun and took aim, and I fired off a series of shots that picked off one or two people. Return fire started coming - but I was on the road and moving. The tank would be sure to be close behind, so I drove as fast as I could. I shot at anyone that I saw in my way - I was taking no prisoners, and I was not going to die. I smashed through a wooden barricade on the road, and roared out of the city, never seeing the tank in my rear view mirror. I headed north; my only hope was that Canada wasn’t as bad as it was here. I got out onto the empty interstate and ripped the car up to about 130MPH.
I had no idea where I was going to end up, nor what to expect outside of my home. But that was the last time I ever saw Rice Lake. The next time I would talk to someone would be in International Falls, Minnesota. And what I learned from him would give me a purpose, and a destination.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Chapter 1: William James Botkin
It wasn’t the first time we’d buried someone important. And certainly, it wouldn’t be the last. But as ten of us stood by the freshly-dug grave, each saying our final goodbye, it had dawned upon me how much losing him would mean to our small town. We could barely survive as it was - and with the man we’d referred to as “Preserver” dead, there was a good chance that we’d fall into chaos for the third time in five years.
We were used to a hard life, and were well averse to the fact that we were not alone in our struggle. It had been 20 years since what most of the outsiders called “The Collapse,” and the stories they’d told, the struggles they’d faced, and the roads they took just to get here was nothing short of heroic - and at the same time, it was horrifying. Preserver had come to our town - no, our country - about five years ago, right when we had our first brush with domination. We’d fought back, but lost many, many badly needed members - and it was Preserver that had brought us through that domination, and led us to fend off against the second bout in a convincing fashion. And now, through a means we didn’t understand yet, he’d been taken from us. Accusations were just getting ready to be hurled left and right, and those of us that were still level-headed would be placed with the burden of filling his shoes. The future would be awful, but for myself, it couldn’t be as bad as the past.
I’d been born in Marathon 42 years ago, to the name of William James Botkin. I’d worked in the pulp mill by the shore from when I was 18, and left when I was 20, just a year before the Collapse. I’d grown tired of Marathon, and wanted to experience life in a busier place. I’d bought a car, said my goodbyes to my family and friends, and headed south. It was the longest drive of my life; 10 hours on the road, stopping only for food. Upon arriving in Toronto, the first thing I did was get a job at a factory on the east end. It was there that I started hearing about the talks - the rumblings of dissent. At first I ignored them; I assumed that nothing that big could ever succeed. But as I listened in on the backroom meetings in the factory, and the secret get-togethers in basements, the more I started to believe. The problem was that nobody, including the leaders, knew when to expect action. They had only a rough timeline of what was suspected, and it was on that timeline that they prepared their followers. I had been working in the Toronto factory for nearly a year, going to meetings for six months, when it became very apparent that the Collapse was going to happen. I remember that I became exceptionally nervous upon the news - while others became very excited. I tried and I tried to believe what I was being told by the leaders - that this action would not just be confined to us, and that such an overthrow would allow us - the people so looked down upon - to build and fix the world for the better.
It was at that time that I was trained to use a handgun. Back in Marathon as a teenager I’d hunted deer and moose with my father, so I was well adept with guns - as long as they were rifles. Learning to use a handgun didn’t take long, but the method in which I was supposed to use it was foreign to me. I was ‘trained’, so to speak, in battle plans, how to walk, how to hide, how to use my urban surroundings to my advantage. At the same time, the leaders assured all of us that we were not alone. They assured us this would be the moment that humanity defined itself.
It wasn’t until the final month that I really started to believe them. The hardest thing to do was to convince myself we weren’t alone, and that we wouldn’t be steamrolled as soon as the Collapse began. But it was only a month before - just one month before the Collapse - that I really started to believe the leaders when they said we weren’t alone. Up until then, doubt filled my mind, and the words “I’m out” lingered on my tongue.
It certainly wasn’t anything the leaders said that cleared my doubts. At times, their dreams and visions just became so hard to grasp and understand that I tuned their voices out. I was in too deep to walk away - at least to walk away without being killed. Instead, it was in the final month, when the news started reporting isolated moments - what they referred to as ‘incidents’ - and what the US leaders referred to as ‘terrorist uprisings inside the homeland,’ that I began to understand how big this was. The earliest was in Chicago - small at first, and quickly crushed - but then it would sprout up a few days later in Kansas City - then New York - then Vancouver - and by the second week, small pockets of the ‘resistors’, as they called themselves, were popping up all over North America.
The damage they did was minimal - and often they would be apprehended by authority and thrown in jail. But there was resilience in their actions - the big cities could handle the pockets, but news started filtering in from overseas about Europe’s struggles with larger pockets of resistence, and in North America smaller towns were either being slowly conquered, or were in fierce fights for supremacy.
Somehow, this growing resistance was unforseen by the governments - but when looking back on the actions that happened, it’s hard to see how they could have been so blind. The reasons were all there - oil was getting dangerously low in supplies, which was creating tension between oil-consuming nations and those that drilled for it. At the same time, the rush for alternative fuel sources was largely unsuccessful - although scientists actually managed to get a car working on corn oil, it was exceptionally inefficient, and used too much corn. People didn’t see it as a solution; just another problem. Most common people weren’t aware of how dependant the economy was on oil - from cars, to manufacturing goods, to food processing, oil was in virtually everything the world had built and used. This was what the Collapse was closely related with - when oil became more scarce, companies couldn’t afford to manufacture as much materials. Production started to drop world-wide, with the exception of a few nations, and companies started to lay workers off. People were finding themselves with more and more time, and less and less money. Crime was rising at the same time as unemployment did. The governments, usually expected to take care of its citizens, stuck to their rhetoric while trying to find alternative fuels - but alas, found out that to find a replacement that could take the place of oil in its entirety was exceptionally expensive to implement as smoothly as oil was. Dissent grew for politicians; weeks before the Collapse officially began the Russian president was murdered - and there were attempts on others, with the South Korean leader being critically wounded. In many ways, the world was falling apart right before everyone’s eyes.
While the uprisings grew in smaller towns, the North American governments started sending armed forces to restore order. While it was effective in quelling the resistence in those areas, other groups started to flare up in the larger cities when the army was off in other towns. Around this time, America sent some of their forces overseas to take the oil ‘by force.’ This choice turned out to be the most costly of all - and for many is considered to be a major reason the resistance actually managed to succeed, so to speak. As the troops were quickly deployed overseas, the resistance took advantage of less homeland defence and over the course of a few days, four major cities fell into chaos. When New York City was first attacked in fourteen different places on August 9th, the Collapse started.
The president tried to quell the violence - by declaring martial law. All at once, the entire United States of America was sent under military control - and troops started rushing in to the four Cities with one intention in mind - stop the resistance any way possible.
The problem was that many ‘ordinary’ citizens had started to join in - not necessarily the resistance, but in the chaos. The combined frustration of a nation was bubbling over, and their opposition was the army.
Our pocket of resistance went into action at this time. Officially we took to our plan on August 12th - we were first targeting a local gas stations, hoping to send them up in flames and causing the tanks to explode. Our leaders commanded us, the followers, to shoot anyone that tried to stop us. There was 21 of us in total - how we hadn’t been found out was a combination of luck and incompetence from authority - but at 6AM, we met at our starting point and took to the streets.
All I had in my hand was a handgun, and attached to my belt was a hunter’s knife for “close combat.” I was appropriated with the task of providing cover fire for one of the two guys that was planting the explosive. We’d been deployed in teams of 5 - with one guy acting as reconnaissance, going ahead of all of us with only a cell phone.
Our team hit the streets at 6:43AM - I remember it so well because I was nervously looking at my watch the entire time - and we received a call on the way at 6:48AM. I sat in the back of the car, which drove down the Toronto streets very calmly, and stared out the windows. Toronto had its share of violence - two other pockets of the resistance had struck nearby - and I saw the damage they’d done as we drove past a burnt out garage.
We arrived, one block short of our target, at 7:15. The five of us got out of the car and immediately took cover behind an old strip-mall. I looked at my explosives guy, who went by the nickname Mickey. He was an particularly average looking man - about my height, a little pudgy but certainly not overweight - and a lot of stubble on his face. He returned my nervous smile that I gave him, and jingled the detonator in his pocket. We gathered our wits and started to head down the block, walking as casual as possible. We were about half way to the station, nobody saying a word, when a car drove by, the driver giving us a peculiar look at he passed. To our horror, he pulled into the gas station and started to fill up.
Within twenty seconds, I knew we would be right where he was - and as soon as he saw five guys approaching on foot, one of two things would happen - he’d either pull a gun, or try and speed off. Unfortunately for us, it would be the first. We walked onto the gas station’s property, and the bald, middle aged man turned to face us.
Shoot him, my mind told me. I knew he would be in the way of our plans, and he could easily identify our faces. Mickey gave me an anxious look, one which the other three team members echoed. I kept walking closer, feeling my courage plummeting. The gun was at my back - all I had to do was pull it and shoot - but I wanted to get as close as I could. I was praying he’d get spooked and try to speed away.
When we were only 15 metres away, all hell broke loose. The bald man was watching us intently - and must have seen one of the team members reach for a gun - because he threw open his door, jumped in his car, and through the window I saw him grab a gun. A big gun.
The next moment happened in slow motion. I’m not sure who fired the first shot - him or us - but as the glass shattered around his car window, we ran for cover. Of course, the closest hiding spots were behind the gas pumps, but those were particularly explosive. In the middle of trying to find cover, I pulled out my handgun and delivered a few shots. Mickey and I hid behind the wall of the gas kiosk, while other team members hid behind pumps.
We had all completely forgotten about the gas station attendant, who was taking cover at the same time. I peered around the corner at the bald man - knowing that it would only be a matter of minutes before the police showed up - and delivered a shot. It pegged his tire, missing him by a foot. One team member rushed out from the pump and opened fire, closing in on the car with lightning speed. He delivered a round, gathering the attention of the bald man, who was focussed on peppering the wall I was behind. I looked out just in time to see the bald man turn his gun on the rushing member, who we’d called Billon, and return a series of shots - one of which hit Billon in the arm, the other in his chest. Billon let out a brief cry of pain before falling not four feet from the bald man.
The other two team members broke from their hiding spots; only one holding a gun. The other was Fisher, the man carrying the second explosive. Fisher’s cover, Tucker, fired out three quick shots, one of which clipped the bald man’s shoulder. There was a loud cry of pain - and as I turned to deliver a cover shot, I watched as the bald man swung his gun at Tucker and put a bullet through his neck. Fisher was right behind Tucker as he fell, reaching for the gun. I swallowed hard and broke from my hiding spot, firing off at least four rounds. The bald man twisted his body, rifling off a number of rounds at me. I dove out of the way, feeling a rush of adrenaline and fear all at once. The bullets whizzed by my body, leaving me unscathed but now without anything to take cover behind.
Luckily for me, Fisher was now right on the bald man. The two bodies collided, and I saw the detonator fall to the ground. The bald man and Fisher rolled around for a few seconds, and I heard three shots. Then, there was no movement from either body.
Mickey and I stood for a few silent moments, looking at the 4 bodies that lay sprawled on the pavement.
“Hurry.” Mickey said to me, echoing my thoughts that the police would be soon arriving. We stepped past the entrance to the kiosk and inspected the bodies of Fisher and the bald man to ensure he was really dead. I kicked the bald man off Fisher, while at the corner of my eye I saw Mickey pick up the fallen detonator.
Our ignorance of the station attendant proved to be costly. I heard the kiosk door open behind us, and spun around just in time to see the attendant in mid-swing, baseball bat in hand, coming across the back of Mickey’s head. Mickey lurched forward and hit the pavement hard, while I took a half-step backwards, tripping over the two bodies I was just inspecting.
“I don’t want to die!” I heard the attendant yell at me as he took a running step at my falling body, bat cocked for another swing. I hit the pavement - but with my gun still in hand, I managed off a shot. The bat swung at my head, missing by mere inches - and I saw it fly from his hands, skipping towards the station’s exit. The attendant dropped to his knees, hands becoming relaxed. And with a flop forward, he was dead - on top of me. I squirmed loose, and stood up, quickly coming to see if Mickey was still alive. He was in the middle of taking struggling breaths - and it didn’t take much effort to see that his skull had been cracked open.
“Mickey!” I called to him.
His eyes slowly turned to look at me, and his lips rose to a weak, sadistic smile. “Go, kid. Go while you still can.”
I stood frozen. “No! I can get you out of here, can get you some help!”
His eyes moved from mine to his hand, which was holding the detonators. “Up in flames,” he gurgled. “Go.”
My eyes widened, and I knew exactly what he was going to do. I heard sirens in the background, and I bolted down the street, gun still in hand. I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t look back. I just ran. And when I was about half a block away, the loudest, most horrific explosion filled my eardrums. I saw the light in front of me get exceptionally bright, and then I felt the shockwave. I stumbled as the ground shook - and then I heard the next explosion - which I assumed was the other bomb - and then a series of explosions, which could only be the gas tanks. The shockwave from those lifted my whole body off the ground, and for a brief second I was hurtling about 10 feet above the sidewalk. I hit the cement walkway hard, cutting and scraping my skin as I slid and bounced across it. I saw a giant fireball lifting into the sky, and a massive rush of heat burned all my recently opened wounds. I shielded my eyes as the bright ball lifted high into the sky. I then heard the sound of falling debris - debris I instantly recognized as having the potential to hurt me - and I scrambled for cover in an nearby alley.
When all the debris had fell, I got up, bleeding all over, and I ran. A police car rushed by me on a nearby street, not even stopping to look at me. I ran and ran, not stopping until I got back to my apartment. It was in there, four storeys above the road, that I finally stopped to catch my breath. I looked out the window to make sure no police were on my trail - and about ten minutes later, I heard another loud explosion - which I knew was another team fulfilling their mission. And a few minutes after, another bang - and I realized how deep I was in. Not only had I joined a radical organization, but I had shot - and killed a man. He wasn’t older than I was - but I had killed him. His face, a combination of pain and shock, stuck in my mind, no matter how hard I tried to forget it.
That was the first time I killed someone. At the same time, it was the start of the Collapse in Toronto - but over the next few weeks, I would watch from my window as the entire city fell apart with the rest of the world.
We were used to a hard life, and were well averse to the fact that we were not alone in our struggle. It had been 20 years since what most of the outsiders called “The Collapse,” and the stories they’d told, the struggles they’d faced, and the roads they took just to get here was nothing short of heroic - and at the same time, it was horrifying. Preserver had come to our town - no, our country - about five years ago, right when we had our first brush with domination. We’d fought back, but lost many, many badly needed members - and it was Preserver that had brought us through that domination, and led us to fend off against the second bout in a convincing fashion. And now, through a means we didn’t understand yet, he’d been taken from us. Accusations were just getting ready to be hurled left and right, and those of us that were still level-headed would be placed with the burden of filling his shoes. The future would be awful, but for myself, it couldn’t be as bad as the past.
I’d been born in Marathon 42 years ago, to the name of William James Botkin. I’d worked in the pulp mill by the shore from when I was 18, and left when I was 20, just a year before the Collapse. I’d grown tired of Marathon, and wanted to experience life in a busier place. I’d bought a car, said my goodbyes to my family and friends, and headed south. It was the longest drive of my life; 10 hours on the road, stopping only for food. Upon arriving in Toronto, the first thing I did was get a job at a factory on the east end. It was there that I started hearing about the talks - the rumblings of dissent. At first I ignored them; I assumed that nothing that big could ever succeed. But as I listened in on the backroom meetings in the factory, and the secret get-togethers in basements, the more I started to believe. The problem was that nobody, including the leaders, knew when to expect action. They had only a rough timeline of what was suspected, and it was on that timeline that they prepared their followers. I had been working in the Toronto factory for nearly a year, going to meetings for six months, when it became very apparent that the Collapse was going to happen. I remember that I became exceptionally nervous upon the news - while others became very excited. I tried and I tried to believe what I was being told by the leaders - that this action would not just be confined to us, and that such an overthrow would allow us - the people so looked down upon - to build and fix the world for the better.
It was at that time that I was trained to use a handgun. Back in Marathon as a teenager I’d hunted deer and moose with my father, so I was well adept with guns - as long as they were rifles. Learning to use a handgun didn’t take long, but the method in which I was supposed to use it was foreign to me. I was ‘trained’, so to speak, in battle plans, how to walk, how to hide, how to use my urban surroundings to my advantage. At the same time, the leaders assured all of us that we were not alone. They assured us this would be the moment that humanity defined itself.
It wasn’t until the final month that I really started to believe them. The hardest thing to do was to convince myself we weren’t alone, and that we wouldn’t be steamrolled as soon as the Collapse began. But it was only a month before - just one month before the Collapse - that I really started to believe the leaders when they said we weren’t alone. Up until then, doubt filled my mind, and the words “I’m out” lingered on my tongue.
It certainly wasn’t anything the leaders said that cleared my doubts. At times, their dreams and visions just became so hard to grasp and understand that I tuned their voices out. I was in too deep to walk away - at least to walk away without being killed. Instead, it was in the final month, when the news started reporting isolated moments - what they referred to as ‘incidents’ - and what the US leaders referred to as ‘terrorist uprisings inside the homeland,’ that I began to understand how big this was. The earliest was in Chicago - small at first, and quickly crushed - but then it would sprout up a few days later in Kansas City - then New York - then Vancouver - and by the second week, small pockets of the ‘resistors’, as they called themselves, were popping up all over North America.
The damage they did was minimal - and often they would be apprehended by authority and thrown in jail. But there was resilience in their actions - the big cities could handle the pockets, but news started filtering in from overseas about Europe’s struggles with larger pockets of resistence, and in North America smaller towns were either being slowly conquered, or were in fierce fights for supremacy.
Somehow, this growing resistance was unforseen by the governments - but when looking back on the actions that happened, it’s hard to see how they could have been so blind. The reasons were all there - oil was getting dangerously low in supplies, which was creating tension between oil-consuming nations and those that drilled for it. At the same time, the rush for alternative fuel sources was largely unsuccessful - although scientists actually managed to get a car working on corn oil, it was exceptionally inefficient, and used too much corn. People didn’t see it as a solution; just another problem. Most common people weren’t aware of how dependant the economy was on oil - from cars, to manufacturing goods, to food processing, oil was in virtually everything the world had built and used. This was what the Collapse was closely related with - when oil became more scarce, companies couldn’t afford to manufacture as much materials. Production started to drop world-wide, with the exception of a few nations, and companies started to lay workers off. People were finding themselves with more and more time, and less and less money. Crime was rising at the same time as unemployment did. The governments, usually expected to take care of its citizens, stuck to their rhetoric while trying to find alternative fuels - but alas, found out that to find a replacement that could take the place of oil in its entirety was exceptionally expensive to implement as smoothly as oil was. Dissent grew for politicians; weeks before the Collapse officially began the Russian president was murdered - and there were attempts on others, with the South Korean leader being critically wounded. In many ways, the world was falling apart right before everyone’s eyes.
While the uprisings grew in smaller towns, the North American governments started sending armed forces to restore order. While it was effective in quelling the resistence in those areas, other groups started to flare up in the larger cities when the army was off in other towns. Around this time, America sent some of their forces overseas to take the oil ‘by force.’ This choice turned out to be the most costly of all - and for many is considered to be a major reason the resistance actually managed to succeed, so to speak. As the troops were quickly deployed overseas, the resistance took advantage of less homeland defence and over the course of a few days, four major cities fell into chaos. When New York City was first attacked in fourteen different places on August 9th, the Collapse started.
The president tried to quell the violence - by declaring martial law. All at once, the entire United States of America was sent under military control - and troops started rushing in to the four Cities with one intention in mind - stop the resistance any way possible.
The problem was that many ‘ordinary’ citizens had started to join in - not necessarily the resistance, but in the chaos. The combined frustration of a nation was bubbling over, and their opposition was the army.
Our pocket of resistance went into action at this time. Officially we took to our plan on August 12th - we were first targeting a local gas stations, hoping to send them up in flames and causing the tanks to explode. Our leaders commanded us, the followers, to shoot anyone that tried to stop us. There was 21 of us in total - how we hadn’t been found out was a combination of luck and incompetence from authority - but at 6AM, we met at our starting point and took to the streets.
All I had in my hand was a handgun, and attached to my belt was a hunter’s knife for “close combat.” I was appropriated with the task of providing cover fire for one of the two guys that was planting the explosive. We’d been deployed in teams of 5 - with one guy acting as reconnaissance, going ahead of all of us with only a cell phone.
Our team hit the streets at 6:43AM - I remember it so well because I was nervously looking at my watch the entire time - and we received a call on the way at 6:48AM. I sat in the back of the car, which drove down the Toronto streets very calmly, and stared out the windows. Toronto had its share of violence - two other pockets of the resistance had struck nearby - and I saw the damage they’d done as we drove past a burnt out garage.
We arrived, one block short of our target, at 7:15. The five of us got out of the car and immediately took cover behind an old strip-mall. I looked at my explosives guy, who went by the nickname Mickey. He was an particularly average looking man - about my height, a little pudgy but certainly not overweight - and a lot of stubble on his face. He returned my nervous smile that I gave him, and jingled the detonator in his pocket. We gathered our wits and started to head down the block, walking as casual as possible. We were about half way to the station, nobody saying a word, when a car drove by, the driver giving us a peculiar look at he passed. To our horror, he pulled into the gas station and started to fill up.
Within twenty seconds, I knew we would be right where he was - and as soon as he saw five guys approaching on foot, one of two things would happen - he’d either pull a gun, or try and speed off. Unfortunately for us, it would be the first. We walked onto the gas station’s property, and the bald, middle aged man turned to face us.
Shoot him, my mind told me. I knew he would be in the way of our plans, and he could easily identify our faces. Mickey gave me an anxious look, one which the other three team members echoed. I kept walking closer, feeling my courage plummeting. The gun was at my back - all I had to do was pull it and shoot - but I wanted to get as close as I could. I was praying he’d get spooked and try to speed away.
When we were only 15 metres away, all hell broke loose. The bald man was watching us intently - and must have seen one of the team members reach for a gun - because he threw open his door, jumped in his car, and through the window I saw him grab a gun. A big gun.
The next moment happened in slow motion. I’m not sure who fired the first shot - him or us - but as the glass shattered around his car window, we ran for cover. Of course, the closest hiding spots were behind the gas pumps, but those were particularly explosive. In the middle of trying to find cover, I pulled out my handgun and delivered a few shots. Mickey and I hid behind the wall of the gas kiosk, while other team members hid behind pumps.
We had all completely forgotten about the gas station attendant, who was taking cover at the same time. I peered around the corner at the bald man - knowing that it would only be a matter of minutes before the police showed up - and delivered a shot. It pegged his tire, missing him by a foot. One team member rushed out from the pump and opened fire, closing in on the car with lightning speed. He delivered a round, gathering the attention of the bald man, who was focussed on peppering the wall I was behind. I looked out just in time to see the bald man turn his gun on the rushing member, who we’d called Billon, and return a series of shots - one of which hit Billon in the arm, the other in his chest. Billon let out a brief cry of pain before falling not four feet from the bald man.
The other two team members broke from their hiding spots; only one holding a gun. The other was Fisher, the man carrying the second explosive. Fisher’s cover, Tucker, fired out three quick shots, one of which clipped the bald man’s shoulder. There was a loud cry of pain - and as I turned to deliver a cover shot, I watched as the bald man swung his gun at Tucker and put a bullet through his neck. Fisher was right behind Tucker as he fell, reaching for the gun. I swallowed hard and broke from my hiding spot, firing off at least four rounds. The bald man twisted his body, rifling off a number of rounds at me. I dove out of the way, feeling a rush of adrenaline and fear all at once. The bullets whizzed by my body, leaving me unscathed but now without anything to take cover behind.
Luckily for me, Fisher was now right on the bald man. The two bodies collided, and I saw the detonator fall to the ground. The bald man and Fisher rolled around for a few seconds, and I heard three shots. Then, there was no movement from either body.
Mickey and I stood for a few silent moments, looking at the 4 bodies that lay sprawled on the pavement.
“Hurry.” Mickey said to me, echoing my thoughts that the police would be soon arriving. We stepped past the entrance to the kiosk and inspected the bodies of Fisher and the bald man to ensure he was really dead. I kicked the bald man off Fisher, while at the corner of my eye I saw Mickey pick up the fallen detonator.
Our ignorance of the station attendant proved to be costly. I heard the kiosk door open behind us, and spun around just in time to see the attendant in mid-swing, baseball bat in hand, coming across the back of Mickey’s head. Mickey lurched forward and hit the pavement hard, while I took a half-step backwards, tripping over the two bodies I was just inspecting.
“I don’t want to die!” I heard the attendant yell at me as he took a running step at my falling body, bat cocked for another swing. I hit the pavement - but with my gun still in hand, I managed off a shot. The bat swung at my head, missing by mere inches - and I saw it fly from his hands, skipping towards the station’s exit. The attendant dropped to his knees, hands becoming relaxed. And with a flop forward, he was dead - on top of me. I squirmed loose, and stood up, quickly coming to see if Mickey was still alive. He was in the middle of taking struggling breaths - and it didn’t take much effort to see that his skull had been cracked open.
“Mickey!” I called to him.
His eyes slowly turned to look at me, and his lips rose to a weak, sadistic smile. “Go, kid. Go while you still can.”
I stood frozen. “No! I can get you out of here, can get you some help!”
His eyes moved from mine to his hand, which was holding the detonators. “Up in flames,” he gurgled. “Go.”
My eyes widened, and I knew exactly what he was going to do. I heard sirens in the background, and I bolted down the street, gun still in hand. I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t look back. I just ran. And when I was about half a block away, the loudest, most horrific explosion filled my eardrums. I saw the light in front of me get exceptionally bright, and then I felt the shockwave. I stumbled as the ground shook - and then I heard the next explosion - which I assumed was the other bomb - and then a series of explosions, which could only be the gas tanks. The shockwave from those lifted my whole body off the ground, and for a brief second I was hurtling about 10 feet above the sidewalk. I hit the cement walkway hard, cutting and scraping my skin as I slid and bounced across it. I saw a giant fireball lifting into the sky, and a massive rush of heat burned all my recently opened wounds. I shielded my eyes as the bright ball lifted high into the sky. I then heard the sound of falling debris - debris I instantly recognized as having the potential to hurt me - and I scrambled for cover in an nearby alley.
When all the debris had fell, I got up, bleeding all over, and I ran. A police car rushed by me on a nearby street, not even stopping to look at me. I ran and ran, not stopping until I got back to my apartment. It was in there, four storeys above the road, that I finally stopped to catch my breath. I looked out the window to make sure no police were on my trail - and about ten minutes later, I heard another loud explosion - which I knew was another team fulfilling their mission. And a few minutes after, another bang - and I realized how deep I was in. Not only had I joined a radical organization, but I had shot - and killed a man. He wasn’t older than I was - but I had killed him. His face, a combination of pain and shock, stuck in my mind, no matter how hard I tried to forget it.
That was the first time I killed someone. At the same time, it was the start of the Collapse in Toronto - but over the next few weeks, I would watch from my window as the entire city fell apart with the rest of the world.
Marathon, Ontario Project
Have you stumbled upon this blog by accident, or curiosity? Regardless of your reasons, allow me to welcome you to the Marathon, Ontario Project I've started. If you're confused by what's going on, read below for an explanation of the project:
Marathon, Ontario Project is a project story I've started from a variety of influences in my recent past. It is a fictional story based on the entire industrial collapse of the world, and a move towards a self-sufficient community - told from 20 years after the collapse itself.
However, unlike a conventional story, I've decided to focus the story around a small town in Northern Ontario called Marathon, which is a real town near Thunder Bay. I've always had a fascination with this town; I'm not sure why, exactly, since I've never been there. This summer I plan to visit it for awhile, depending on how this project develops.
The story will focus on the townsfolk in Marathon, with the structure being broken down into a collection of short stories told from the perspective of different people. Unlike a conventional story, that focuses on the actions of only a few members, I hope to create an expansive vision of the 'past' and the town itself without ever giving the "voice of god" narration.
I will be using as much factual research as possible; despite the story being fictional, I want the physical characteristics of the world to be as close to reality as possible.
I highly encourage any comments, criticisms, or fact-checking on each chapter. I'm not a professional writer by any means; in fact, I'm just a film student who's wrote three screenplays.
That's the outline of the project itself - from there, we will see how this project evolves. Happy reading!
-Mark, Author
PS: Click here for a satellite view of Marathon, ON
Map view of Marathon
Marathon town site
Marathon, Ontario Project is a project story I've started from a variety of influences in my recent past. It is a fictional story based on the entire industrial collapse of the world, and a move towards a self-sufficient community - told from 20 years after the collapse itself.
However, unlike a conventional story, I've decided to focus the story around a small town in Northern Ontario called Marathon, which is a real town near Thunder Bay. I've always had a fascination with this town; I'm not sure why, exactly, since I've never been there. This summer I plan to visit it for awhile, depending on how this project develops.
The story will focus on the townsfolk in Marathon, with the structure being broken down into a collection of short stories told from the perspective of different people. Unlike a conventional story, that focuses on the actions of only a few members, I hope to create an expansive vision of the 'past' and the town itself without ever giving the "voice of god" narration.
I will be using as much factual research as possible; despite the story being fictional, I want the physical characteristics of the world to be as close to reality as possible.
I highly encourage any comments, criticisms, or fact-checking on each chapter. I'm not a professional writer by any means; in fact, I'm just a film student who's wrote three screenplays.
That's the outline of the project itself - from there, we will see how this project evolves. Happy reading!
-Mark, Author
PS: Click here for a satellite view of Marathon, ON
Map view of Marathon
Marathon town site
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